Ibistorical /IDiscellan^ 

Edited by Earle W. Dow 



EMANCIPATION OF THE 
MEDIEVAL TOWNS 



BY 

A. GIRY AND A. REVILLE 



TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY 

FRANK GREENE BATES 

Professor of History, Alfred University 

AND 

PAUL EMERSON TITSWORTH 

Instructor in Modern Languages, Alfred University 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1907 



IbiBtorical /BMscellan^ 

Edited by EARLE W. DOW 

University of Michigan 

Large 8vo. Paper. Per volume, 50 cents 



Seignobos's Feudal Rfegime. 

Translated by Earle W. Dow, Professor in 
the University of Michigan. 70 pp. 

Geo. B. AdamSt Professor in Yale University : — 
The account of feudal society is the best now accessible 
in English. I am glad you have given us these chap- 
ters in a form which admits of general use. 

Roscher's The Spanish Colonial System. 
Translated from the German of Dr. WiLHELM 
RosCHER under the supervision of Prof. E. 
G. Bourne of Yale. 48 pp. 

Giry and Rfiville's The Emancipation of the 
Medieval Towns. 

Translated from the Histoire Generale by Prof. 
Frank Greene Bates and Paul Emerson 
TiTSWORTH of Alfred University. 69 pp. 

Lavisse's Medieval Commerce and Industry. 

Translated from the Histoire Generale under 
the supervision of Earle W. Dow, Assistant 
Professor in the University of Michigan. 

\In preparation. ] 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

Publishers New York 



Ibistorical /iDtscellan^ 

Edited by Earle W. Dow 



EMANCIPATION OF THE 
MEDIEVAL TOWNS 



BY 

AfGlRY AND A. REVILLE 



TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY 

FRANK GREENE BATES 

Professor of History, Alfred University 

AND 

PAUL EMERSON TITSWORTH 

Instructor in Modern Languages, Alfred University 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1907 



(V(aM 9- 



UBBASy of C.0N6RESS| 

APh 23 i9«/ 






Copyright, 1907 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



NOTE 

This work is a translation of chapter viii of the second vohime 
of Lavisse and Rambaud's Histoire Generale. In view of the 
present trend of historical teaching it is not likely that too many- 
works upon the social and economic life of the middle ages 
will be made available to the undergraduate student. The com- 
parative meagerness of existing discussions of this sort in English 
is the justification offered for the appearance of this translation. 

In dealing with technical terms the translators have put into 
English the words strictly translatable; those not so translatable 
have been given on their first occurrence in the original form 
in italics, sometimes accompanied by a note, and afterwards used 
as English words. The foot-notes enclosed in brackets are in- 
serted by the editors, or are matter transferred from the original 
text; others are translations of notes in the French. 

It is desired to acknowledge our indebtedness to the editor 
of this series for valuable suggestions. 

Frank Greene Bates 
Paul Emerson Titsworth 

Alfred, N. Y., October, 1905 



111 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTKR PAGE 

I. THE ORIGINS I 

II. THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION 8 

' III. THE COMMUNES 31 

IV. TOWNS OF BURGESSY ; NEW TOWNS 60 

V. CONCLUSION 66 



EMANCIPATION OF THE MEDIEVAL TOWNS 



- . THE ORIGINS 

Pate of the old Roman Towns. — The history of the towns and 
of urban civilization during the first centuries of the middle ages 
is little known ; indeed it would be truer to say that it is almost 
entirely unknown. The meager documents which these times 
have left us touch only the greater political events, the history of 
kings and of the more prominent characters ; as to the fate of the 
people, the anonymous masses, they give us but rare and vague 
ideas. Nevertheless, though explicit statements are lacking, we 
may see in part what was the lot of the urban groups and of the 
individuals who composed them. 

The Roman Empire bequqathed to the middle ages a goodly 
number of towns. Of these the most important by reason of 
population, wealth, and rank, were the cities.^ There were about 
one hundred and twelve such towns in ancient Gaul. Other towns, 
called castra, were simply fortified places. The cities, which for 
a long time had enjoyed a considerable degree of freedom, pos- 
sessed municipal institutions ; but this regime, under the oppress- 
ive action of the fisc and of an overwhelming centralization^ 
was in full disintegration as early as the fourth century, even 
before the invasions had precipitated the fall of the Empire. In 
the anarchy which followed the arrival of the Barbarians, nothing 
remained standing of all this structure, for no one was interested 
in preserving it. The Roman municipal regime expired. 

What, then, became of the cities ? In most of them a certain 
personage soon distinguished himself among the inhabitants and 

P Civitates.l 
I 



2 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

gained over them an undisputed preeminence : this was the bishop. 
He was no longer simply the first priest of his town, he was its 
lord. As early as the end of the seventh century, perhaps before. 
Tours was under the rule of its bishop. Thus it was that most of 
the old Roman cities became, in the middle ages, episcopal seign- 
iories. This was the case with Amiens, Laon, Beauvais, and 
many others. 

All, however, did not have the same fate. Some, in conse- |/' 
quence of wars, or of partitions, passed into the hands of lay 
princes. Angers belonged to the count of Anjou, Bordeaux 
to the duke of Aquitaine ; Orleans and Paris were directly under 
the king. Elsewhere, beside the old city where the bishop ruled, 
there sprang up a new town, the bourg, which was under another 
lord, lay or ecclesiastical: thus at Marseilles the city was under 
the bishop, and the town under the viscount. In the same way 
the bourg was distinguished from the city at Aries, Narbonne, 
Toulouse, and Tours. Other places again, pillaged, ruined, and 
depopulated, lost their rank as towns and were reduced to simple 
villages, or were even blotted out, London, after the English 
invasions, was a heap of ruins, and the courses of the old Roman 
Toads which intersected it were so completely obscured that the 
new streets, marked out in the same directions when the town 
was reviving in the middle ages, no longer coincided with them. 
Viriconium, one of the richest of the British cities, was reduced 
to nothing, and it is only in our times (1857) that its exact 
situation has been discovered. In the same way the destruction 
of the Portus Itius, which stood upon the shores of the Strait 
oi Dover, and that of Tauroentum, upon the coast of Provence, 
were so complete that to this day scholars do not agree as to 
where they were located. 

Such are the vague ideas which we possess concerning the 
political changes in the Roman towns at the beginning of the 
middle ages : with so much the more reason do we know nothing 
of the history of the small towns, of the simple fortified bourgs, 
which were built in great numbers at the end of the Empire. 
All must have come to constitute seigniories, but we do not know 
how this transformation took place. 



THE ORIGINS 3 

Formation of new Urban Centers. — We might expect then to 
find at the dawn of the eleventh century only a small number of 
towns, shattered and fallen remnants of the ancient cities and 
bourgs surviving in a new age. But while these lived on obscurely 
down to the time when they were to reappear in public life, there 
were groups of more recent origin which had sprung up on all 
sides. The numerous domains into which the land had been 
divided under Roman domination met various fates. Although 
most of these domains were sparsely settled and became later 
simple rural parishes, others attracted immigrants who grouped 
themselves in large numbers under the shadow of the seigniorial 
castle or abbey; and on their sites future towns formed slowly. 
Such domains, nameless in the sixth century, had become impor- 
tant centers in the eleventh. Examples are numerous. In the 
southern provinces, Montpellier and Montauban ; in the northern, 
Bruges, Ghent, Lille; in the central, Blois, Chateaudun, and 
Etampes grew up around castles. More numerous still, espe- 
cially in the north, were the towns which owed their origin to the 
protection of an abbey. Such were Saint-Denis, Saint-Omer, 
Saint- Valery, Remiremont, Miinster, Weissenburg, Redon, Con- 
dom, Aurillac, and many others. 

It is uncertain at just what time and under what circumstances 
the movement of concentration was brought about; but it is 
probable that a variety of causes called it forth. The assurance 
of finding under the protection of certain seigniors a paternal gov- 
ernment, security, impartial justice, and other similar guaranties, 
must certainly have attracted to their domains a host of peasants 
in search of better conditions, and this explains perhaps the for- 
tune of many small ecclesiastical bourgs. " There is good living 
under the cross," runs an old saying. Elsewhere it was a clever V 
expedient of the lords, like the establishing of a market, which 
brought strangers upon their lands, and instead of a simple 
castle there soon appeared a town. Such is the history of Cateau- 
Cambresis. Among the most important of these causes, however, 
were the Norman invasions, which, for a century, laid waste the 
country, ruined the peasants, and drove them within fortified walls. 
The most interesting example of this cause is the origin of Saint- 
Omer. In the ninth century, as a simple abbey under the pro- 



4 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

tection of Saint Bertin, it was devastated twice in succession, in 
860 and 878, together with the region which surrounded it. 
Taught by experience, the monks surrounded their monastery by 
walls, so that when the Normans returned the third time in 891, 
the abbey was in position to resist them. This domain was settled 
so rapidly that by the tenth century the former monastery had 
become a town. 

To-day, of more than five hundred French towns hardly eighty 
date back to the Gallo-Roman period ; the others are for the most 
part fortified villages. The generic name which is given them 
is simply the Latin word villa, which means rural domain. 

Condition of the Towns down to the Eleventh Century. — Care 
should be taken not to overestimate the importance of the urban 
communities during the first centuries of the middle ages. They 
were more numerous than important, and it is probable that they 
were neither very populous nor very rich. In a backward state 
of civilization it is impossible for towns to develop. A large 
city can live only by the exchange of its products for those 
things which it does not produce but which are brought to it. 
Without commerce there can be no large cities. Now, in that ob- 
scure age which extends from the fifth to the tenth century, all 
commerce was reduced to an indispensable minimum, except dur- 
ing an ephemeral renaissance in the time of Charlemagne. Only 
the shores of the Mediterranean continued to be frequented by 
merchants, and the relations between Provence, Italy, Greece, and 
the Orient were never entirly broken. In consequence, the cities 
of that privileged region preserved, it seems, a commercial class 
and a certain degree of prosperity. Everywhere else commerce 
was nearly annihilated, because there was neither the security nor 
the centers of exchange which it needed. Each domain lived upon 
itself, was almost self-sufiicient ; made the iron, wood, and woolen 
articles it needed, as well as produced its own wheat. The towns 
probably did the same; they were rural bourgs, and the inhabi- 
tants were peasants who worked on the surrounding land. Be- 
sides, custom did not aid in their development. Kings, nobles, 
Gallo-Roman and Germanic proprietors preferred to live in the 
country ; the towns were no longer the theater of great events. 

It is difficult to form a clear picture of the urban groups at 



THE ORIGINS 5 

that time and of the people that composed them. The new 
small towns huddled around the castles, abbeys, and churches. 
The old cities, once spacious, razed their former suburbs and 
restricted their limits so as to have less area to defend, as at Paris, 
Bordeaux, Evreux, Poitiers, and Sens. Roman monuments are 
discovered to-day outside the enclosures which these towns made 
for themselves at the time of the invasions. All towns, whenever 
possible, encircled themselves with ramparts, with embattled walls 
surrounded by moats, and armed their counterscarps with traps, 
abatis, and palisades. Inside the city the population, although 
not numerous, must have lived crowded together, as the archi- 
tecture of the houses shows. The Roman dwelling was spread 
out in a comfortable way, with a large inner court, the atrium, 
and was generally low. Now the atrium was given up, filled in, 
and the roof rose high over a series of stories, which perhaps 
already were built so as to overhang, to gain still more room. 
As for monuments, the only ones which adorned the towns were 
those which the Romans had left. And sometimes even these 
were appropriated to strange uses, like the temple of Vesuna at 
Perigueux, which was changed into a tower for purposes of 
defense, or like the circus of Nimes, which sheltered a part of the 
inhabitants and formed a veritable " quarter." Sometimes, too, 
these monuments were destroyed that the materials might be used 
for other constructions, especially for fortifications. 

Between the church and the seigniorial dwelling, which was > 
usually built to one side upon a precipitous hill or upon an artificial 
mound, the townsman passed his monotonous life, happy when 
a private war or an incursion for pillage did not bring upon his 
house or upon him the horrors of assault. Of political rights, 
he had none. The lord or his officers ruled the inhabitants as 
masters, imposed dues upon them, arrested, and judged them. 
The civil condition of the inhabitants must also have grown 
harder. It seems, indeed, that the number of freemen had 
noticeably diminished in the towns as well as in the country. 
Perhaps the cities of the south, thanks to their privileged situa- 
tion, may have escaped in part this social decline ; but this decline 
was general in the north, where only those preserved their inde- 



6 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

pendence who made it their business to bear arms in the following 
of a seignior and to live at the expense of others. 

Thus from the sixth to the tenth century, townsmen did not 

*/ count in society. Bishop Adalberon, in a famous poem to King 

Robert, considered around him only two classes : churchmen and 

nobles, beneath whom, but very far beneath, were the commons 

who worked. 

First Groupings of Townspeople. — Perhaps it would be exag- 
geration to admit that the inhabitants existed only as individuals,, 
that there was no community among them; probably from these 
early times the urban populations began to group themselves. 
In the first place, it is likely that the exercise of jurisdiction was 
not the exclusive privilege of the lord. At Strassburg, according 
to a document which probably dates from the end of the tenth 
century, the bishop chose quite freely his officers, except the 
advocate,'- who exercised for life high justice over the citizens, 
whom he appointed " by the choice and with the approval of the 
canons, ministerials, and burghers." ^ And, besides, it is known 
that the Carolingian tribunals presided over by the counts or by 
their missi, had as assessors a certain number of freemen, who^- 
were permanent judges but chosen from among the inhabitants 
of the country. These were the scabini. This institution seems 
to have persisted in the towns of the south as well as in those of 
the north, for it is found there again during the eleventh century. 
This was, as it were, a first organ of community. It was in- 
complete and emanated from the lord, who appointed the eche- 
vins^ but it was independent, since these officials, it seems, were 
chosen for life, and with at least the apparent consent of the 
inhabitants. 

On the other hand, the custom of association was very wide- 
spread in the middle ages. When the individual was insuffi- 
ciently protected by the police and by the laws, he had to defend 
himself, and for that purpose association with others seemed 

\} In the Latin, advocatus ; in German, Vogt. This office dates from the 
Prankish period ; its holders administered or controlled seculai interests of' 
monasteries and churches.] 

[2 " cum electione et consensu canonicorum ministeraliutn et burgensium."^ 

[8 Same as scabini.} 



THE ORIGINS / 

necessary. In some places merchants formed themselves into 
societies, as at Valenciennes under the name of " Brotherhood 
of the Halle Basse," or as at Arras, and in many towns of the 
north and east. In the English boroughs flourished the leagues 
of peace, or frith-gilds, whose members swore, in a sense of 
common responsibility, to render mutual aid in every circum- 
stance, and to sustain and avenge one another. Elsewhere, a 
part of the inhabitants united under a religious guise to rec- 
ommend themselves to the protection of the saints, and thus they 
constituted secret or public groups called charities or brother- 
hoods. 

Many other causes also contributed to the formation, among the 
inhabitants of the towns, of relations which were finally to group 
them into a community. Among those who were subjects of the 
same lord, w^ho were amenable to the same tribunal, faithful to 
the same church, suffered the same abuses, and participated in the 
same advantages, there was formed as a natural consequence, by 
the solidarity of interests, a sort of corporate bond. / At the same 
time there grew up usages which prepared the way for a cus- 
tomary municipal law. Works of general utility necessitated com- 
mon agreement. Public calamities also tended to the same 
end. 

Without doubt, it can hardly be said that these vague lines 
constituted the beginning of a municipal regime. Nothing of 
that existed yet, or could even be foreseen. But let order be re- 
established, let commerce be revived and the towns become popu- 
lous, let the townspeople become conscious of their strength, and 
they will find in these barely outlined groupings the point of 
departure of a communal and privileged organization. 



4 



II 

THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION 

There came a day when the towns demanded of their lords 

guaranties against the arbitrary exploitation of which they were 

victims ; when certain of them demanded and obtained a relative 

autonomy ; when those serfs and commons that bishop Adalberon 

looked down upon with scorn, treated with their masters upon 

; an equal footing. This movement of emancipation of the towns, 

■' which extended throughout western Europe from the end of 

V the tenth century to the thirteenth, has received the name of the 

communal revolution. 

Origin of Urban Institutions. — As often happens, for this very 
simple phenomenon historians have sought profound and compli- 
cated causes, and have set its origins as far back as antiquity. 
Some have thought that this revolution was only the resurrection 
of old Roman institutions, and have taken pleasure in pointing 
out all the exterior resemblances of the communal system to the 
Roman municipal organization in the period of the decline : espe- 
cially the terms municipium, consul, lihertas romana, often used 
in the middle ages. This doctrine is to-day abandoned, for, as we 
have seen, nothing remained of that regime which Rome imposed 
upon the cities. As for the coincidences which have struck his- 
torians, they are easily explained by the use of the Latin language 
and by the necessity of designating new institutions by old terms 
more or less appropriate. 

Other scholars, such as Leo, Eichhorn, Maurer, and Hegel in 
Germany, have believed that these same origins must be sought, 
not in Rome, but in the Germanic institutions brought into Gaul 
and Italy by the invasions. According to them, the domanial 
regime, the organization of the villa, of the mark, of the hundred, 
or of the village, with their officers, contained from the beginning 



^ 



THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION 9 

all the elements which, by being transformed and accommodated 
to the needs of the times, were gradually to supply the essential 
parts of the municipal system of the middle ages. 

Without stopping upon the detailed criticisms which each of 
these theories provokes, we can charge them with the grave fault 
of not accounting for the communal revolution. Why should that 
movement occur at the particular time it did, and not before? 
Why should it assume variable forms? Why should it manifest 
itself at the same time in old and in new towns, — in the cities of 
Italy, where the memories of Roman civilization had perhaps 
been preserved, as well as in those of the north, where Ger- 
manic influence had been so active? 

The real cause of the emancipation of the towns was more 
immediate. It lay in the economic ^and social transformation^, 
which was taking place from the tenth to the twelfth century, in 
the revival of labor and of production in all its forms, which was 
then stirring Europe. From the end of the tenth century, the 
feudal world was in process of organization ; in the midst of the 
universal parceling, a relative degree of order prevailed ; there 
was no longer the anarchy of former times, and each lord en- 
deavored to organize and exploit his fief for his best interests: 
new markets were opened ; relations were established between 
town and town. Traffickers multiplied and ventured far from 
the walls which protected them; men began again to exchange 
commodities : local commerce was reestablished. At the same 
time, the society which had been languishing in the villages and 
"bourgs contracted the taste for travel and adventure, for pil- 
grimages even to the Holy Land; the world grew larger; the 
horizon of men's minds broadened ; relations were opened between 
the north and the south, between the Occident and the orient: 
commerce on a large scale was revived. The result upon the 
towns was immediately felt. Necessarily poor and weak when 
there was no commerce, they now grew in wealth and population. 
The inhabitants soon became able to resist their lords. The best 
proof in support of this explanation is that the path of emancipa- 
tion followed exactly the great commercial currents of the time. 
The first towns to grow were the cities of Italy; then came 
the towns of the Rhine, — that great highway of commerce 



lO EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

which united northern Europe with the Mediterranean, — and the 
principal places of Flanders, Hainault, and Picardy, that is to 
say, the principal commercial centers of the middle ages. And 
^it was the rnerchants who directed the communal revolution in 
each town : their associations were the cradles of the communes ; 
and often their place of meeting, their gild-hall, the cloth-hall, 
as at Beauvais, Ypres, and Arras, was the first town hall.^ 

But, it will be asked, how could the townspeople everywhere 
be organized against their lords? How could they be grouped 
thus in opposition to the powers over them? The reason is that 
everywhere the towns were suffering from the same evils. The 
preambles of the charters of the communes give most eloquent 
testimony on the subject. Louis VII confirmed the commune 
of Mantes " because of the excessive oppression under which the 
poor were groaning." The counts of Ponthieu assured liberties 
to the towns of Abbeville and Doullens, " to free them from the 
wrongs and exactions which the townspeople continued to suflfer 
at the hands of the lords of the land." The evils which these 
documents signalize were without doubt of long standing; they 
must have called forth complaints for a long time. But when 
there came to be in each urban community a merchant aristocracy, 
wealthy, bold, and capable of consecrating its resources to the 
work of common emancipation, complaints led to acts, and the 
revolution began. 

Favorable Condition of the Towns of Southern Europe. — This 
revolution developed very early upon the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean, in Italy and in Provence. Here the old cities had never 
ceased to have trade relations with the Orient ; their traffic, al- 
though reduced by the universal disorganization into which 
Europe fell at the beginning of the middle ages, does not seem to 
have suffered complete interruption. Even the more recent towns 
attracted to themselves a portion — often considerable — of this 
commerce. Not only did Venice, Genoa, and Amalfi send their 
galleys into the Byzantine Empire, but Aries, a city of less im- 

[1 This last sentence especially may be misleading, unless it is taken to say not 
that the new town organizations were simply developments from the merchant 
gilds, but that the general movement among townspeople here called the commu- 
nal revolution was due chiefly to the initiative of the merchant class. — D.] 



THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION II 

portance, sustained with Greece relations regular enough to be 
mentioned as early as 921. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, 
when the passion for pilgrimages and crusades spread abroad, 
this commerce greatly increased, not only with Constantinople but 
especially with the Infidel. Thus the urban communities of the 
south were early richer and more populous than elsewhere. In ^^ 
them was formed an opulent burghal class, experienced in busi- 
ness, capable of resisting the lords, and even of triumphing over 
them. 

This was so much more the case because these towns, different 
from the northern bourgs, were inhabited not simply by common 
people. The small nobles also lived in them; knights, vavasors,^ 
and captains, who were accustomed to command and to handle the 
sword, who were independent as regards the high barons, and 
who were the more jealous of their prerogatives because they 
possessed few of them. This latter class was always ready to 
uphold the citizens in their demands, — a valuable alliance for the 
people, since it assured them of what was too often lacking in the 
north, the cooperation of men-at-arms. Again, the southern lords, 
who were more civilized, more broad-minded, and more far- 
sighted, took an interest, not only in war and in the crusades but 
also in the commerce which was enriching them while it enriched 
their subjects. They understood more quickly, perhaps, the ad- 
vantage which there was for them in freeing the working classes, 
who should be more prosperous according as they were more 
independent, and they did not show toward the efforts of the 
communities the savage and obstinate hostility that was seen 
elsewhere. 

Finally, the sovereigns were far away. The king of France 
was not likely to interfere in favor of a vassal, such as the count 
of Toulouse, who might be threatened by the ambitious designs 
of his lesser subjects. The German emperor never appeared in 
Provence, and made into Italy only rapid and infrequent expedi- 
tions. In short, the most diverse circumstances united to render 

[1 Or vavasour, or vavassor, or valvasor ; in the medieval Latin, vassusvassorum. 
A feudal lord holding not directly from the sovereign, but of another lord ; a vassal 
not of the first rank. In this class were usually found chatelains holding fortified 
houses and rights of territorial justice.] 



12 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

the emancipation of the Mediterranean towns prompt, easy, and 
complete. 

Towns of Provence and of Langnedoc. — Like that of the 
Italian cities, and for the same reason, the emancipation of the 
communities of Provence, though somewhat later, was pre- 
cocious. If the Italian cities obtained full liberty as early as the 
eleventh century, those of southern France were only beginning 
their transformation at that time, and this work of emancipation, 
less favored by circumstances, was prolonged until the year 
1200 and later. It is very difficult to fix with greater precision 
the time when the towns of southern France succeeded in escaping 
from the seigniorial despotism. One must not think that they did 
not enjoy any independence until they were in possession of a 
communal charter and of a clearly organized municipal adminis- 
tration; these did not come until later. The oldest charters of 
enfranchisement granted them date from the twelfth century 
and do not antedate the charters of liberties given the towns of 
the north. Many even were not issued before the first years of 
the thirteenth century. But at that time these communities had 
long enjoyed, in fact if not in law, incontestable privileges, and 
some of these must have had a very remote origin. Aries, for ex- 
ample, which had a very stormy history, and which in 1154 did 
not yet have officially recognized liberties — since the emperor 
Prederic I handed over that city to the archbishop in full lord- 
ship^ — possessed certain rights from the eleventh century, and 
even from the tenth. The inhabitants took part in public life. 
The most prominent were consulted whenever there were impor- 
tant decisions to be made, and their approbation was mentioned 
expressly in acts of general interest. In 962 count Boso entered 
into an agreement with the abbey of Saint Victor of Marseilles 
" in the presence of all the men of Aries .... and with the coun- 
sel of the principal inhabitants ; " there follows a list of names. 
A hundred years later, between 1065 and 1079, a donation of the 
count to the same monastery received again " the approbation of 
the citizens,^ and all those who are present ratify it ; " and yet for 
a long time there was to be no question of a charter or of official 
organization. At Moissac, as early as 1067, the count of Tou- 

[1 " cum omni integritate sua."] p Civis.] 



THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION I J 

louse conceded privileges to the inhabitants, but it was not until 
the first half of the twelfth century that they received an acknowl- 
edgment of customs. At Nimes, on May 7, 1080, the arch- 
bishop convoked the citizens in general assembly to approve a 

donation to a church. " All were present," it is said " The 

archbishop acted by the will and upon the prayers of the lords 
and of the citizens. . . . This act was confirmed and corrobo- 
rated by all the citizens of the town." 

And if it be said that these inhabitants perhaps played in the 
various instances simply a role of mute witnesses, acted purely 
formally, here is a case in which they surely gave proof of 
initiative. At Carcassonne, at the end of the eleventh century, 
between 1096 and 1107, four hundred and eighty-five persons 
representing the community swore allegiance to the count of 
Barcelona. Shortly after, about 1107, another group took the 
same oaths, not to the count but to his rival, the viscount Bernard 
Atto, in these terms : " We, known men of Carcassonne, knights, 
burgesses, and all the rest of the people, together with subur- 
bans, promise thee fidelity." They took sides according to their 
preferences, conducted themselves as independent persons, not 
as churls but as vassals. And nevertheless, the first charter of 
privileges granted to this town dates from 1184. 

It was indispensable to multiply these examples, in order to 
show how general this reversed evolution was. How may this 
contradiction be explained? It is probable that in the south 
emancipation began very early, from the end of the tenth cen- 
tury ; that, meeting no insurmountable opposition, it developed 
little by little, without serious reverses, according to the needs of 
the day, by a number of precedents which by dint of repetition 
became law, and that there was thus established a vaguely defined 
condition which varied greatly from one town to another. Later 
there came a time when the people wished to make these con- 
ditions regular, official, definitive, when they made theory out 
of reality. Then it was that there were given these towns 
charters of enfranchisement which perhaps did not assure them 
a single additional privilege. This hypothesis is confirmed by the 
very subject-matter of the customs of Albi. They date only from 
1220; still the inhabitants exercised enough influence as early 



14 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

as 1035 to obtain the construction of a bridge. Let us note that 
these customs were but the resume of old public usages in 
thirteen articles. They were recorded, it is said, after inquest 
made by the old men of the city who sought to find out " what 
had been from former times the liberties and the customs."^ It 
was the same at Montauban. Thus we can say, in short, that 
the communal charter, appearing very late in the cities of the 
south, was less a concession of new privileges than the confirma- 
tion, or at most the extension, of old franchises. 

It is not then astonishing that the emancipation, under this 
modest, slow, and intangible form, proceeded peaceably, without 
wars and without dramatic incidents. Moreover, certain special 
circumstances were of a nature to favor it. Most of these towns 
were shared among many lords, lay and ecclesiastical. These 
mesne lords, these joint seigniors, continually fighting among 
themselves, found among the people possible allies, whom they 
must treat gently, and gain to their cause. Through these con- 
flicts, doubtless, the communities saw their privileges grow. 
Aries, for example, in the twelfth century, was divided into four 
towns, each within its special enclosure : the City, which belonged 
to the archbishop ; the Old Bourg, which was shared by the counts 
of Provence, the archbishop, and the Porcellet family ; the Mar- 
ket, dependent upon the archbishop, who had subinfeudated one 
half of it to the viscounts of Marseilles, and the other to the 
provosts of Aries; finally, the New Bourg, the domain of the 
lords of les Baux. We can imagine whether or not the relations 
between these combative barons were always cordial, and what 
benefits the inhabitants drew from their disagreements. From 
the eleventh century they generally sustained their prelates in 
their interminable quarrels with the counts of Provence; later, 
in the thirteenth century, when France and the Empire were 
disputing over Provence, when Charles of Anjou conquered 
this province, the people of Aries took sides with the emperor. 
Thanks to these various conflicts their independence was de- 
veloped. Thus the communities of townsfolk were drawn by 
their lords themselves into political intrigues. They constituted 
a public power and had but to exact payment for their aid. 

[!"... qualiter . . . libertates et consuetudines steterant antiquitus."\ 



THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION I 5 

Insurrection in the Towns of Langnedoc. — There were, how- 
ever, many cases of popular insurrection, but they occurred later, 
when this evolution was approaching its end. In 1188, Tou- 
louse arose against its count, Raymond, and civil war broke out. 
At Montpellier the consuls were excommunicated in 1142, for 
having driven out their lord, William. The people of Nimes, 
probably in 1207, arose against the constable and the provost of 
the count of Toulouse. They killed the provost, ravaged his 
domain, plundered his house, ransacked the count's palace and 
a mill belonging to it, refused the count entrance into the town, 
brought in his enemies instead, and substituted themselves for 
his officers in the exercise of criminal justice. 

But the most dramatic episode took place at Beziers, in 1167. 
The people complained of being oppressed by their viscount. 
During an expedition of their lord, Raymond Trencavel, a man 
from his army quarreled with a knight and robbed him of a pack- 
horse. The lord delivered the culprit to the knights, and they, 
says the chronicler mysteriously, punished him " lightly, in truth, 
but in a way which disgraced him for the rest of his life." The 
people swore vengeance, and when the campaign was finished they 
besought the viscount to remove the opprobrium which reflected 
upon them all. Raymond explained kindly that he was con- 
strained to appease the knights of his army, that he would will- 
ingly repair the wrong and would take counsel of the principal 
inhabitants. On the day specified he betook himself to the church 
of the Madeleine, and with the bishop there awaited the people. 
These came with their arms and carrying concealed poniards. 
The offended person presented himself and asked Trencavel if he 
was ready to avenge him. When the viscount again replied that 
he would leave the decision to the council of the lords, and to the 
arbitration of the citizens, the conspirators drew their arms, 
rushed upon Raymond, and in spite of the intervention of the 
bishop they killed him before the altar with his barons. His son 
Roger was exiled. Two years later, however, he was reestab- 
lished, but he had to swear to the commune not to avenge his 
father. Hardly was he reinstalled when he ordered his Aragonese 
troops to proceed to a general massacre of the inhabitants. They 
gave quarter only to the Jews, and also, as the chronicler says. 



l6 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

to the women, whom the soldiers then married to repeople the 
town. 

These are about all the cases of municipal sedition in the south 
of France. Doubtless there were others the knowledge of which, 
through the fault of annalists, has not come down to us. Never- 
theless, silence of the writers and of the charters would be inex- 
plicable if the examples had been frequent. 

Towns of the North. — The emancipation of the towns of cen- 
tral and northern France, of Germany, and of England, followed 
closely the emancipation of the Mediterranean cities. The first 
manifestations were in Flanders, on the banks of the Rhine, and 
in the French provinces of the north-east. As early as 957 the 
inhabitants of Cambrai, taking advantage of the absence of their 
bishop, banded together and had the audacity to shut the gates of 
the town in his face when he returned. In 967 the abbey of Saint 
Arnulf of Metz granted a charter of liberties to the bourg of 
Morville-sur-Seille, and some years later, in 984, it granted an- 
other to the domain of Broc. In 1003 the emperor, Henry II, 
recognized privileges for the bourg of Cateau-Cambresis. Never- 
theless these were rare and premature cases, and more than half 
a century passed before other attempts came to light. Then, 
however, they multiplied. Saint-Quentin conquered its title of 
commune before 1077, and Beauvais before IC99 ; Arras became 
independent in the course of the eleventh century ; Noyon emanci- 
pated itself about 1108; Valenciennes in 1114; Amiens between 
1 1 13 and 1 1 17; Corbie about the year 11 20; Soissons about 11 26; 
Bruges, Lille, and Saint-Omer about 1127; and Ghent and Liege 
a few years after. This was the heroic age of the communal revo- 
lution. From this time on the movement was accentuated; the 
budding desire for independence spread from town to town. The 
freed cities became models ; their successes emboldened others. 
The wave reached its height in the twelfth century and in the first 
half of the thirteenth; then it slowly receded. It had done its 
work in two hundred years. The cities had obtained satisfaction 
The map of feudal Europe was dotted from north to south ana 
from east to west with independent or privileged communities.V 
The public mind was penetrated by a new idea, that of the free 



THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION 17 

town ; the political vocabulary was enriched by a new word, com- 
mune. 

This work of emancipation was not carried out without great 
difficulties. The urban communities were less populous, less rich, 
and less strong in the north than upon the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean. Besides, the seigniorial class was so powerful in the 
north that the people there seemed incapable of making way 
against it. Finally, the king of France, the king of England, and 
the German emperor were near at hand, and it seemed certain 
that they would sustain their vassals energetically. 

The Clergy and the Towns.— the clergy showed themselves 
especially intractable. The famous words of Abbot Guibert of 
Nogent have often been quoted, "Commune ! new, detestable name !" 
That was the general sentiment of churchmen. Monastic chron- 
iclers, preachers, and bishops vied with one another in exclaim- 
ing against these factious " turbulent conspiracies " which shook 
the social order to its foundations. In 1099, Ives of Chartres, 
one of the most eminent prelates of his time, affirmed to the 
deans and canons of Beauvais that they were not obliged to keep 
the oath taken to the recent customs of the city ; " such compacts," 
he said, " are binding upon no one, are void, because they are con- 
trary to the canonical law and to the decisions of the holy fathers." 
In the twelfth century, Bishop Stephen of Tournai manifested 
his horror at these cities of confusion in terms more violent still, 
if not as elevated or in as good taste. " There are in this world," 
he said, "three or perhaps four bawling herds upon whom 
silence is not easily imposed : a commune of workmen who wish 
to play the lord, women in dispute, a drove of grunting pigs, and 
quarreling canons. We make fun of the second, we scorn the 
third, but, Lord deliver us from the first and from the last ! " 
The synod of Paris in 1213 cast opprobrium upon " these associ- 
ations which usurers and exactors have built up in almost every 
city, town, and village of France, commonly called communes, 
which have established diabolical usages tending to overthrow the 
jurisdiction of the church." Finally, the papacy itself, from 
Innocent II to Boniface VIII, joined in this concert of maledic- 
tions, especially when it was a question of ecclesiastical towns. 
Gregory IX solemnly excommunicated the people of Rheims who 



1 8 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

had risen against their mother the church, expelled their father 
the archbishop, and appropriated his goods, " wherein they have 
surpassed the ferocity of vipers." 

The Lords and the Towns. — As for the lay lords, at first they 
manifested hardly more tenderness for these urban associations. 
" By these leagues," said Guibert of Nogent angrily, " the hold- 
ers by cens ceased to be submissive to the arbitrary charges which 
weigh upon the serfs." This was exactly the sentiment of the 
lords in regard to the communes. Their omnipotence was limited ; 
their revenues and their political and judicial prerogatives were 
lessened ; in their very faces a collection of villains arrogated to 
themselves a part of their power. Consequently, most of them, 
in the twelfth century, offered an energetic resistance to these 
pretentions. The count of Flanders, Philip of Alsace, frightened 
the towns of his domain by a series of bloody executions. 
[ However, the hostility which they manifested to the emanci- 
1 pation of the towns was less keen, less general, and especially less 
^.tenacious, than that of the clergy. A few, the needy ones, more 
eager for money than for power, gave in to the golden arguments 
which the rich communities offered. Others, like the dukes of 
Burgundy and the counts of Nevers, aided the emancipation for 
policy's sake, to gain alliances against neighboring lords, and 
notably to oppose the implacable church lords. Others were in- 
telligent enough to perceive that by emancipating their towns 
they aided the prosperity and growth of these towns, and that 
thus they derived revenues superior to all the arbitrary taxes they 
could impose upon miserable serfs. Still others, among the most 
powerful, like the dukes of Normandy and the counts of Cham- 
pagne, prevented insurrections by granting the franchises volun- 
tarily; instead of fighting against the current of emancipation 
they believed it better to direct it and to hold it within bounds. 
These variations, however, came later, after the wane of the 
twelfth century. In principle, it seems, the feudal lords had been 
unanimous in combatting the efforts of the towns. 

The French Kings and the Towns. — Like the feudal lords and 
I for the same reasons, the French kings, in principle, refused inde- 
I pendence to the towns of their domain. Louis VII suppressed 



THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION I9 

with severity a seditious attempt at Orleans. But upon the lands 
of their vassals, where they intervened as suzerains, they did 
not have the same reasons for declaring and enforcing their opin- 
ion. Here their policy, which was not inspired by any fixed 
principle, lacked clearness and continuity. Tradition formerly 
attributed to Louis VI the honor of having " freed the communes." 
Such, however, v/as not the case. While he confirmed a number 
of charters granted by the lords, on the other hand he did not 
hesitate to aid by his own forces barons who were struggling 
against rebellious communities : the bishop of Noyon, and the 
abbots of Saint-Riquier and Corbie. In the same year, 11 12, he 
protected the commune of Amiens and destroyed that of Laon. 
Very sensitive to the attractions of gain, he sometimes offered 
independence to towns, but, money in hand, he was ready to turn 
against them, if later he found it to his advantage. Upon the 
square of Laon, over which the bishop and the people were dis- 
puting, his support was literally bid off at auction. His successor, 
Louis VII, apparently saw more clearly that communes upon the 
lands of vassals whom he feared were natural allies of the crown 
in the camp of the enemy, and that it was to his interest to aid in 
their development. If he protected the rights of the archbishops 
of Rheims and of Sens, of the bishops of Beauvais, Chalons-sur- 
Marne, Soissons, of the abbots of Tournus and of Corbie, on the 
other hand he multiplied the concessions of charters and sus- 
tained the emancipated towns against the hostility of the lords. 
Philip Augustus, accentuating this policy, confirmed charters 
granted by others, and he even freed a number of communities in 
the districts which he united to the crown, and even in the domain. 
But he made them pay for his support, and he imposed upon them 
his protection, giving out liberties with one hand while with the 
other he extended royal supremacy. 

This systematic benevolence was tardy, for the communal revo- 
lution was by that date drawing to a close. So it may be said, in 
resume, that in the beginning the towns met a universal resist- 
ance, which in some cases was never done away with but in 
others was weakened or transformed at the bidding of interest 

The Sworn Commune. — The means by which the inhabitants 
of the towns were enabled to prepare for the struggle, and by 



■ / 

• 



20 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

which they were often assured the victory was apparently the 
same, or nearly so, everywhere; this was the conjuration.^ The 
inhabitants, as we know, were bound together in various associ- 
ations under a variety of names, such as gilds, associations of 
friendship, brotherhoods, and banqueting clubs. The most im- 
portant by reason of wealth and the most highly esteemed by the 
public were the societies of merchants or tradesmen, designated 
at times by particular titles according to the kind of traffic es- 
pecially carried on in each town: in one place the association of 
navigators; in another, of drapers; in still another, of money- 
changers. Primarily they had no political character, but nearly 
everywhere, circumstances aiding, they developed into veritable 
leagues, arrayed the rest of the inhabitants with themselves, and 
made them swear allegiance to the common cause. Fortified by 
this harmony and by these oaths they treited with their lords in 
the name of the entire population. This process was the same 
throughout northern Europe, in Germany as in France, in Flan- 
ders as in England. Usually the commune was only the extension 
of a powerful, private association.^ 

Sometimes, to be sure, this same role was played, not by an as-r 
sociation of merchants, but by a religious brotherhood. At 
Chateauneuf, a bourg near the city of Tours, the brotherhood of 
Saint Eloi organized a conspiracy, and proclaimed, in 1305, the 
freedom of the place. At Poitiers the " hundred peers," who 
formed the town corporation, were recruited from the brother- 
hood of Saint Hilary. Still, perhaps, it is an exception more ap- 
parent than real ; some of these associations being only companies 
of merchants under a religious guise. Such was the brotherhood 
r Assomption de la Vierge, which gave rise, it is said, to the com- 
mune of Mantes. As for the associations of arts and crafts, they 
nowhere directed the movement. The lesser people composing 
them were still too little developed to exercise upon events any 
profound and concerted influence. They followed impulses which 
they received and when need arose accentuated them, but did not 
originate them. 

]} Conj'uratio.'l 

P It may be well to recall here and throughout this section on " the sworn com- 
mune," the caution suggested on page 10, note. — P.] 



THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION 21 

Thus the communes generally took their rise from an oath- 
"bound league of all the inhabitants, brought together by the 
burghal aristocracy. Hence the expression " sworn commune," 
by which the free towns in the north of France during the middle 
ages are often designated. Hence, too, the name " conjuration," 
which was given by the chroniclers to these urban revolts : " riot- 
ous conjuration of the commune which had been formed," ^ as is 
said of Beauvais at the end of the eleventh century. The seigniors 
were very fearful of these conjurations, which armed entire cities 
against them. When a conflict broke out, in 1208, between the 
people of Lyons and their archbishop, the decree by which order 
was restored attributed the whole trouble to the oaths required 
of the citizens, and it stipulated " that they had sworn never again 
to make a conspiracy of this kind, never again to take any com- 
munal or consular oath." 

It was not sufficient for the merchants to organize a commune 
and to make the inhabitants swear allegiance to it. It was es- 
pecially necessary to obtain from the lord his acknowledgment 
or his acquiescence. 

Communal Insurrections ; Laon, Sens, and Cambrai. — Cases of 
communal insurrection were not infrequent in the twelfth century. 
Augustin Thierry, who wrote dramatic accounts, liked to picture 
sturdy artisans armed with their mallets, their hatchets, and their 
working tools, struggling successfully against their lords in the 
labyrinth of narrow and tortuous streets. We have just seen how 
little part the artisans took in this revolution ; but it is certain that 
in the history of these uprisings there were tragic scenes. 

Especially, the uprising in Laon will always be cited. This 
place v/as a veritable den of cut-throats in the beginning of the 
twelfih century. The nobles threw themselves upon the burghers 
at night or even in the daytime, and exacted ransoms from them ; 
the burghers captured peasants who came to market and impris- 
oned them in their houses ; the bishops imposed upon the inhabi- 
tants arbitrary tallies, and had those who were unable to pay them 
condemned. The man who became bishop in 1106 was a warlike 
Norman and a great hunter, " who loved above everything else 

[1 " turbulenta conjuratio facttB commuitionis."] 



22 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

to talk of combats, dogs, and falcons." He had all who displeased 
him tortured by a black slave. While he was in England (1106), 
the people of Laon consulted together, adopted a plan of com- 
mune, and by the aid of money got the clergy and the knights 
governing in his absence to agree to it. Upon his return the 
bishop was very much enraged, but, won over by a goodly sum 
of money, he confirmed the concession. And finally the king 
himself, attracted by the promise of an annual payment, ratified it 
in his turn. The people's money had worked marvels, but the pre- 
late, who spent large sums, was not long in regretting the time 
when his exactions had not been limited. To gain the support of 
Louis VI, he promised him seven hundred livres, and then by 
virtue of his pontifical authority he released the king and himself 
from the oaths which they had both taken, and annulled the com- 
munal charter (11 12). The inhabitants were in consternation; 
the shops and the inns were closed. The agitation reached its 
climax when the news came that the bishop, in order to pay the 
aid promised to the king, was about to demand of each burgher 
the same sum that each had given toward the work of emanci- 
pation. 

There was a muttering of coming storm. Forty of the boldest 
swore upon their lives to kill their lord and his accomplices. The 
prelate was quickly warned. " What ! " he replied, " die at the 
hands of such beings ! " Already many houses belonging to the 
nobles had been attacked and pillaged, but the bishop lost nothing 
of his haughty confidence. " What," he asked, " can you expect 
these folk to do by their commotions ? If my negro John were to 
seize the most terrible one of them by the nose, the fellow would 
not dare to give even a growl. What they yesterday called their 
commune, I have forced them to give up, at least as long as I 
live." The next day a cry resounded through the town : " Com- 
mune ! Commune ! " It was the signal for the insurrection. 
Bands of men took possession of the church, massacred the nobles 
who came to the aid of their lord, besieged the episcopal palace, 
and entered it by force. They ransacked the apartments and 
finally discovered the bishop, disguised as a servant and lying 
hidden in a cask at the bottom of the cellar. " Somebody there ? " 
cried one of the infuriated men, dealing it a heavy blow with a 



THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION 25 

club. " An unhappy prisoner," replied the unfortunate bishop, 
trembling. He was recognized and dragged by the hair into the 
street, where a few blows from a hatchet finished him. His 
corpse, even, was not respected. To obtain his episcopal ring a 
finger was cut off, and the body was then stoned and smeared 
with mud. The nobles were insulted and beaten. The people 
vented their malice upon noble ladies and stripped them of their 
rich clothing. The houses of the nobles were set on fire; an 
entire quarter was in flames. When the king marched against 
the town the principal culprits fled. The nobles avenged them- 
selves cruelly for their suffering, massacring in the streets, and 
even in the churches, the inhabitants who had not been able to 
escape, pillaging in their turn also the houses of their enemies 
and carrying away everything even to the furniture and the bolts 
of the doors. Louis VI reestablished order in the town. Six- 
teen years later, in 1128, fearing a second explosion of popular 
hatred, he consented to grant a new commune, which received, 
however, the less offensive name of " Institution of Peace." ^ 

It would be easy to multiply examples: le Mans, Amiens, 
Beauvais, and Ghent struggled for their emancipation. At Lille, 
the officers of the count of Flanders, Charles the Good, wished 
to arrest a free man whom they claimed to be a serf. The in- 
habitants arose and exiled their lord and his advisers. The 
citizens of Rheims, in 1130, obtained a communal charter, but, in 
1 160, the archbishop undertook to limit it. An insurrection broke 
out at once. The king sustained the prelate, but the uprising in- 
creased. Between 1103 and 1106, the abbot of Vezelay laid a tax 
upon the houses of the bourg. The people arose and killed him. 

In 1 146, the citizens of Sens formed an association and, with 
the consent of Louis VII, adopted the charter of liberties of 
Soissons. But the clergy, and especially the monks of Saint- 
Pierre-le-Vif, saw their jurisdictions destroyed and gave the 
alarm. The abbot of Saint-Pierre, Herbert, laid his grievances 
before Pope Eugene III, who was then in France, and, at the 
request of the holy father, the king dissolved the commune. 
Hardly had the abbot returned when the citizens assembled,, 

[1 Institutio pacts, 1 



24 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

broke down the doors of the monastery, and murdered the prelate 
and his nephew. The town was at once taken by the royal troops 
and the principals and accomplices in the crime were seized. 
Some were executed without form of trial ; others were forced to 
throw themselves from the tower of Saint-Pierre ; the rest were 
taken to Paris and condemned to death. As for the commune, it 
was not reeestablished until later. 

At Cambrai, the struggle between the bishop and his subjects 
was marked by acts of ferocity. The inhabitants having con- 
spired in the absence of their lord, he recruited in Germany and 
Flanders an army of mercenaries, with which he reentered his 
trembling city in a peaceable manner. Then, at unawares, he gave 
the town over to his soldiers, who massacred the inhabitants upon 
the squares, in the streets, and even in the churches. Torturing 
their prisoners, they cut off their feet and hands, put out their 
eyes, and branded their foreheads with red-hot irons. When an- 
other uprising broke out the prelate seized a burgher, and on his 
refusal to betray the conspirators, he had him beaten with rods, 
had his tongue and eyes torn out, and then ordered him to be dis- 
patched by the sword. 

That the insurrections were not always successful is apparent. 
There were communities which never gave up and which, al- 
though repeatedly conquered, did not cease to reorganize. The 
people of Cambrai had been struggling for more than a century 
when, in 1073, they organized a commune ; a little later it was de- 
stroyed by the count of Mons. They reestablished it in 11 07; this 
time it was the German emperor who put an end to it. As tena- 
cious as their enemies, they revived it again in 11 27. At Vezelay, 
from 1 103 to 1250, there occurred no less than five insurrections 
and almost always they were mercilessly put down. Lastly, the 
most strikingly characteristic example is that of the bourg of 
Chateauneuf near Tours. Twelve times, from the twelfth to the 
fourteenth century, it arose against its lord, the abbot of Saint 
Martin, and twelve times it was conquered. On the other hand, 
there were other communities so completely prostrated after their 
first effort that they never dared again to demand the right of 
commune. Such was Orleans, a royal town, which adopted a 
charter in 1 137. Louis VII hastened to the spot and " as the mad- 



THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION 2$ 

ness of some fools hath striven against the royal majesty, he 
boldly put it down, not without destroying some." Orleans re- 
tained such a profound memory of this event that it never re- 
newed the attempt. 

Thus, whether victorious or beaten, there were many communi- 
ties that sought emancipation by revolt. Care should be taken, 
however, not to raise the communal insurrection to the plane 
of a general theory. This was the error of Augustin Thierry and 
the historians of his school. They saw the emancipation of the 
towns in the middle ages in the light of the revolutions of the 
nineteenth century. They could not conceive of emancipation ex- 
cept as a consequence of revolt, and since they found in ancient 
documents many examples of a nature to confirm this opinion, 
they declared that for a long time the " communal condition in 
its full development was scarce ever brought about except by 
open force and by compelling authority to capitulate in spite of 
itself." ^ The truth is, on the contrary, that war was merely anA 
accident in the evolution of the towns, and that most of them ob-^ 
tained privileges without any armed struggle. 

Other Modes of Emancipation. — Often when the lords were 
engaged in war the townspeople withheld their support, stated 
their terms to both sides, sold their assistance to the highest bid- 
der, and thus in the midst of such hostilities secured their freedom. 
In this way Neuf chateau made itself a commune in 1231, when 
the duke of Lorraine, Matthew, was fighting with Thibaut, count 
of Champagne, and the town received from the latter aid and suc- 
cor against its lord. On the other hand the feudal lords did not 
hesitate to grant privileges to the towns when they had need of 
their assistance; if many claimants were disputing over a fief, 
there was at times among them a deluge of generosity. This 
happened in Flanders in 11 27-1 128. William Clito, grandson of 
the Conqueror, in 1126 married Jane of Savoy, sister of the queen 
of France, and received investiture for the county of Flanders. 
Desirous of being welcome, he had scarcely arrived before he 
granted guaranties to the people of Lille, Ghent, Bruges, Ardem- 
bourg, Bethune, Therouanne, and Saint-Omer, all in 1127. But 

P Lettres sur VHistoire de France, XIII.] 



26 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

he had a rival, Thierry of Alsace, who, attacking him and making 
use of the same weapons, granted privileges to Arras, Therouanne, 
Bruges, Saint-Omer, Lille, and Aire. Thus we see certain of 
these towns received favors from two sources. 

It was especially by arguments of pounds and pennies that the 
towns gained independence. The lords were needy or prodigal, 1 
and always short of money. If they wished to go to the Holy 
Land, to found a monastery, to undertake an expedition, or to pay 
their ransom, they made an appeal to their subjects, who untied 
their purse-strings only in exchange for a parchment. Most of 
the communal charters were probably purchases, even though 
the commercial clause, little flattering to seigniorial pride, was 
rarely specified in them. Louis VI sold to the town of Amiens 
an act of enfranchisement. The charter of the citizens of Laon, 
granted in 1174, was annulled in consequence of conflicts with 
the bishop, but the inhabitants bought it back, promising to pay to 
the sovereign a whole list of dues. Later, in 1196, they obtained 
the commutation of these charges into a lump sum. In 1216 or 
1217 — a singular example — the people of Auxerre obtained from 
their count a lease of his town for six years on condition of pay- 
ing him an annual rental of two thousand livres of Provins. 

The treaty of peace concluded with the lord was usually but a 
truce, and the towns allowed no opportunity to escape to gain new 
franchises. It was by money, again, that these successive en- 
croachments were made. In 1186, Philip Augustus granted some 
new privileges to the people of Compiegne, who had been free 
from 1 1 53. The commune of Beauvais, which had been consti- 
tuted before 1099, increased its rights from 1175 to 1217, under 
the pontificate of Philip of Dreux, a warlike prelate who was 
always engaged in distant wars and who never ceased to lack 
funds. Saint-Omer, which was free as early as 1127, bought from 
count Thierry of Alsace its town hall in 1151, and privileges at 
the fairs of Lille, Messines, and Ypres in 11 57. In 1209, the 
seneschal" of the chatelain ^ sold to the people a meadow situated 
not far from the walls, and in 1275, gave up to them the rights 

[1 From the Latin castellum ; in the medieval Latin, castellanus. The keeper or 
guardian of a castle. In France, a territorial lord who had the right to hold a 
castle.] 



THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION 2/ 

of socome which he had preserved on certain lands of the com- 
mune in exchange for one hundred and sixty Hvres of Paris,^ 
" for my great necessity," he said humbly, " which is known and 
apparent." 

Lastly, the townspeople in England did not conquer their 
famous municipal liberties; they acquired them and gradually 
extended them by the aid of money. A charter relating to the 
town of Leicester furnishes an example of this which is naive, and 
perhaps legendary; it is at least an expression symbolic of the 
truth. The burghers complained that in the processes of justice 
they were compelled to resort to the wager of battle ^ and they 
desired to substitute for it compurgation, or testimonial proof 
furnished by neighbors and relatives. "It happened," says 
the document in question, " that two relatives, Nicholas, son of 
Aeon, and Geofifry, son of Nicholas, fought a duel over a piece 
of land which both coveted. The duel lasted from the first hour 
to the ninth without decisive result. One of them, while stepping 
backward, came near the curb of a small well and was about to 
fall in, when his adversary said to him : ' Take care, you are 
going to fall!'" At these words the spectators raised such a. 
clamor that the count, perplexed, demanded its cause. They nar- 
rated the affair to him, the duel and the generosity of one of the 
combatants, and the burghers, moved with compassion, offered 
him an annual payment of three pence upon each house having a 
gable upon the main street if he would consent to suppress the trial 
by battle and to confide to twenty-four jurors the care of hearing: 
and judging all their causes. The request was granted. 

Some lords, far from resisting the claims of the towns, favored 
them ; as much from interest as from generosity. In their fiefs 
the bourgs had no struggles to maintain and no sacrifices of 
money to make. Such were the counts of Ponthieu, and especially 
William III, who, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, of 
his own volition, granted communal charters to le Crotoy, Doul- 

]} Down to the time of Louis XIV reckonings in France were made chiefly either 
in Hvres parisis (livres of Paris), or in livres tournois (livres of Tours). The- 
former were worth one-fourth more than the latter.] 

[2 On the duel as a method of securing proof, see Seignobos, Feudal Rigime,. 
p. 62.] 



28 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

lens, Ergny, Rue, and Saint-Josse-sur-Mer, where he acted in 
spite of the abbey that shared with him the lordship of the place. 
In the same way Jane of Constantinople, who was countess of 
Flanders from 121 1 to 1244, showed herself very liberal toward 
her towns. She distributed privileges upon all sides, to Bruges, 
Courtrai, Damme, Dunkirk, Eecloo, Furnes, Ghent, Middleburg, 
Mude, and Valenciennes. 

Other centers were not obliged even to solicit their liberties, 
which were imposed upon them by their lords. These were the 
communities of France which were dependent upon the king of 
England. Between 11 69 and 1179, Henry II conferred on Rouen 
and La Rochelle the famous municipal constitution known as the 
Establishments of Rouen. The same statute was successively ex- 
tended to the towns of Normandy, to Saintes, Angouleme, 
Poitiers, Cognac, Saint- Jean-d'Angely, Bordeaux, Bayonne, and 
the islands of Re and Oleron. These liberties were carefully 
limited, and the English sovereigns had nothing to fear from 
them ; indeed, they seemed destined to assure to those sovereigns 
the sympathy and alliance of the urban populations. 

Towns of the Holy Roman Empire. — In this common work of 
enfranchisement the lot of the towns of the Empire was peculiar. 
Instead of conquering their liberties all at once by force or by 
some adroit maneuver, and of extending them little by little by 
taking advantage of every favorable circumstance, as the other 
communities did, they were obliged to pass through two clearly 
separated stages to attain independence. In the twelfth century, 
like all the other urban agglomerations, they strove to free them- 
selves. But the emperor, upon whom they were directly de- 
pendent after he had raised them to the rank of tenants-in-chief, 
held them under his powerful hand and consented to grant them 
only civil liberties. Each time that they desired autonomy and in- 
dependence they met with his refusal. In 1161, Barbarossa subju- 
gated the burghers of Treves, who had conspired against their 
archbishop. In 11 63, learning that the people of Mainz had killed 
their lord, he hastened thither, sacked the city, and razed the ram- 
parts. Thus in the twelfth century the towns gained only the most 
essential liberties : guaranties against the arbitrary power of their 
lords; never political independence. In the middle of the thir- 



THE COMMUNAL REVOLUTION 29 

teenth century, however, the Swabian dynasty died out and feudal 
Germany enjoyed a prolonged interregnum. The towns, which 
now had only local sovereigns to oppose them, pressed their 
claims, and after a struggle in which success and failure were 
mingled, many of them triumphed. Metz, which had been en- 
joying certain liberties since the twelfth century, then attained 
full independence. Strassburg obtained a municipal administra- 
tion distinct from the episcopal administration. Besan(;on organ- 
ized a commune and in 1290 had its emancipation sanctioned by 
the new emperor, Rudolph. The second stage was passed a hun- 
dred years after the first, and it was then that the famous free 
towns of the Empire were constituted. 

Thus all Europe presented the same spectacle from the eleventh 
to the thirteenth century. The urban communities, before so 
humble and so profoundly silent that we know almost nothing 
of them, were developing, were raising their voices, and were 
all tending toward the same end, emancipation. Everywhere, in 
spite, of diversities of place, time, circumstances, obstacles, or 
aids, they reached their goal or approached it more or less closely. 
It was a universal current which carried all with it. 

Rural Communes. — This tendency was so general that it ex- 
tended even to the country, and simple villages obtained, either 
by benevolent grant of their lords or even by insurrection, char- 
ters of liberties. A good many of them are preserved, like those 
of Arques in Flanders and of Bruyeres in Picardy. In all proba- 
bility many more have not come down to us. There were rural 
communes in all the provinces of France, and it is astonishing to 
notice that even villages of two or three hundred inhabitants, 
whose population was never much larger, enjoyed this title in the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Often, too, localities too weak 
to organize by themselves joined forces, federated themselves, and 
thus formed a sort of collective commune. These were to be 
found in southern France,— in the valleys of the Pyrenees, in the 
Alps; and also in the north, in Picardy, Ponthieu, Artois, and 
Flanders, like the Franc of Bruges, the Four Trades on the do- 
main of Saint-Bavon of Ghent, Lederzeele, and the province of 
Waes. The best known is that of the region about Laon. It was 
formed of seventeen villages whose political center was Anizy-le- 



30 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

Chateau, which received in 1128 the charter of Laon, called the 
Institution of Peace. 

What was the result of this universal effort, at times heroic and 
often prolonged, which the communities of every rank, small and 
great, made to escape the arbitrary exploitation of which they 
were the victims ? 



Ill 

THE COMMUNES 

As they had attained their emancipation by the most diverse 
ways, the towns of the middle ages were not likely to have any 
uniform constitution, and their independence, like their organi- 
sation, varied greatly from one center to another. One commune 
was almost autonomous, while another had only the appearance 
of liberty. In some cases the source of authority resided in a gen- 
eral assembly of the inhabitants, in others the power was in the 
hands of an oligarchy formed of a few families who reserved for 
themselves the magistracies and the municipal offices. Thus it is 
impossible to characterize the situation in these towns compre- 
hensively and precisely. And on the other hand, between the 
localities which were most independent and those which remained 
under the immediate surveillance of royal or seigniorial officials, 
there were so many intermediate types, so many degrees and 
shades of liberty or of subjection, the transitions from one to an- 
other were so imperceptible, that it is no less difficult to find 
categories into which they can be grouped for systematic study. 
They formed a continuous hierarchy without breaks, or without 
periods of arrested development. Nevertheless historians are ac- 
customed to rank them in two distinct classes: communes and 
towns of burgessy. Under the name of communes they designate 
those centers which had acquired from their lord a certain degree 
of political independence. In the towns of burgessy, on the con- 
trary, the inhabitants had gained civil liberties only, guaranties 
against the administrative, fiscal, judicial, and military despotism 
of the master ; they had not conquered the right to govern them- 
selves. This division is purely arbitrary. It does not date from 

31 



32 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

the middle ages and in practice it would be difficult, if not im- 
possible, to distinguish clearly the least free of the communes 
from the most independent of the towns of burgessy. With this 
reservation we shall make use of it, because it is used and is 
perhaps as good as any. 

The Communal Charter. — Whether extended or restricted, 
the rights of the commune were almost always set forth in a 
written indenture, a contract which was entered into between 
the commune and the lord, a fundamental agreement which could 
be referred to in case of new difficulties or of disputes, and which 
served at the same time as a certificate of birth and as a deed of 
constitution. This was the communal charter. It is true that 
certain places, like Abbeville, are cited where emancipation was 
not at first sanctioned upon parchment, but these are exceptions 
to the rule. 

Although these charters were zealously guarded in coffers, the 
keys of which were in possession of the municipal authorities 
alone, they have rarely been preserved to us in their original 
form ; usually they are known only by more recent confirmations. 
They differed remarkably from each other. That of Corbie 
comprised only seven articles; that of Molliens-Vidame, a little 
place in Picardy, contained sixty. The length of the act was not 
in proportion to the importance of the place. They were drawn 
up ordinarily in the form of a seigniorial, but sometimes in an im- 
personal, style. The clauses were usually an enumeration without 
order, often ambiguous, and at times contradictory. As a rule 
they aimed principally to guarantee the existence of the communal 
bond, to regulate the relation of the commune to its suzerain, 
especially in the matter of justice and of imposts, and to determine 
the rights and privileges of the burgesses. These liberties, as they 
were called, concerned the limitation of the taille,^ taxes, corvees, 
tolls, banalities, chevauchee, and war, and the exercise and extent 
of seigniorial justice. The charters rarely described the whole 
municipal constitutiqn. Generally they mentioned only the in- 
novations and illuminated the doubtful points, while they passed 
in silence established usages which were not subjects of dispute. 

[1 For explanation of feudal terms see Seignobos, Feudal Rigime\ 



THE COMMUNES 33 

Hence the incoherence, vagueness, and incompleteness apparent 
in these charters.^ 

On the other hand they frequently fixed certain points of the 
customary law and served in a certain measure as a civil and 
criminal code. " By them," said Guibert of Nogent, " the holders 
by cens are condemned, for infraction of the law, only to a legally 
determined penalty." Here is the manner, the often naive form of 
their punishment : " He who shall have committed a murder in 
the town shall find sanctuary nowhere ; if he escape punishment 
by flight his houses shall be razed and his goods shall be confis- 
cated, and he shall not be permitted to return until he shall be 
reconciled with the relatives of his victim and shall have paid ten 
livres, of which a hundred sous shall go to the chatelain and a 
hundred to the commune for the fortifications. He who shall have 
wounded with a weapon some person in the town, and shall have 
been convicted of it by witnesses, shall pay ten livres, — a third to 
the victim, a third to the chatelain, and a third to the commune 
for the fortifications. He who shall have struck someone in the 
town shall pay a hundred sous. He who shall have torn out some- 
one's hair shall pay forty sous. He who shall have insulted some- 

[1 It may be questioned whether this characterization of the communal charter 
and its objects is in all respects true ; and the impressions it conveys may not be 
quite corrected by statements on later pages. That the charters did not describe 
the whole of the municipal constitution is easily explained by the fact that they 
were issued not exactly to a municipality or for the purpose of creating a muni- 
cipality ; but to a commune — an organization more or less inclusive of the in- 
habitants of a town — and for the purpose of modifying in various particulars the 
conditions and laws prevailing in a given place. The development of a munici- 
pality was especially promoted by such an organization taking such steps ; but 
even in towns where there was a commune, the municipality did not necessarily 
owe either its origin or all its growth to the communal organization. Further- 
more, the disorder, incoherence, vagueness, and incompleteness which the writers 
of this account saw in the communal charters are not so apparent when one reads 
them, not as documents which ought somehow to have described the municipa- 
constitution but did not, but strictly as what they were designed to be : written 
guaranties of those particular innovations and those settlements of doubtful points 
which the communal organization was established and maintained to secure. 
When so read, at least many of the communal charters not only assume an orderly 
form, but reveal without incoherence or undue vagueness and incompleteness, 
the objects the communers had in view. See Dow, " Some French Communes in 
the Light of their Charters," in American Historical Review, July 1903. — D.] 

3 



34 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

•one shall pay forty sous. He who shall have wounded with a 
weapon someone within the banlieue and shall have been convicted 
of it by two witnesses, shall pay a hundred sous ; and if he shall 
have killed him, ten livres, of which a hundred sous shall go to the 
chatelain, and a hundred to the commune for the fortifications." ^ 

Most of the communal charters endeavored also to gain security 
for outside merchants : " If an outside merchant comes to Beau- 
vais for market and any one do him wrong or injury within the 
limits of the banlieue, if complaint of it be made to the mayor and 
the merchant can find the malefactor in the town the peers shall 
render justice, unless the merchant be one of the enemies of the 
commune." Finally, these acts almost always sanctioned, in the 
most varying terms, the principle of solidarity of the burghers: 
" All the men of the commune shall aid each other with all their 
power," says the charter of Senlis. " Each of the men of the com- 
mune," says the charter of Abbeville^ " shall be faithful to his 
fellow, come to his succor, and lend him aid and counsel." 
" Whoever," states a third, " shall have committed a wrong 
against a man who shall have sworn this commune, the peers of 
the commune, if complaint be addressed to them, shall do justice 
upon the body and goods of the culprit according to their judg- 
ment." 

To be sure, not every contract of this kind contained such a 
variety of stipulations. This or that clause, largely developed in 
one act, was totally omitted in another. At times the charter con- 
sisted merely of an amnesty, or of a benevolent concession of the 
lord which was limited in extent and briefly stated. 

This diversity, though, must not be exaggerated. It cannot be 
said that there were as many different types as there were char- 
ters. Some charters, in fact, were imitated, copied, and passed on 
from town to town. The count of Ponthieu, between 1130 and 
1 194, granted a constitution to Abbeville, "according to the 
rights and customs of the communes of Amiens, Corbie, and 
Saint-Quentin." Ardres was organized in the twelfth century in 
imitation of Saint-Omer; Athies and Ferrieres,^ on the model 
of Pdronne. Perhaps the reputation arising from the successful 

[1 Charter of Saint-Omer, 1168.] [^ In Department of the Somme.] 



THE COMMUNES 35 

operation of these charters assured for them a good degree of 
favor ; perhaps the larger centers infected the small bourgs which 
surrounded them, like Soissons and Dijon, whose communal 
organization was imitated throughout the duchy of Burgundy; 
perhaps certain lords from political motives secured the adoption 
of the same constitution at several places in their domain. One 
need not recall that this was the case with the Establishments of 
Rouen. In northern France the mother-town was distinguished 
from its daughters by the name " mistress of interpretation ; " ^ 
these demanded enlightenment of her when the meaning of an 
article or clause appeared to them obscure. Consultation was 
usual with them, at times even obligatory. The charter was like 
a sacred text which the metropolis had dictated in an hour of 
inspiration, and which it alone was authorized to interpret. 

The Collective Communal Seigniory. — ^The commune in its 
entirety, considered without reference to the individuals who com- 
posed it, has been said to be nothing but a collective seigniory. 
This likening a town of burghers to a fief, however strange it 
may seem, is fully justified, and present-day historians unite in 
approving it. It should be remarked first of all that collective 
seigniories were not rare in the middle ages : such were the abbeys 
and chapters, in their way. The communes, which were born 
when feudalism was in full flower, when the seigniorial form was 
investing and embracing everything, — states, persons, and ideas, 
— entered necessarily into the feudal mould and there developed. 
However burghal the commune appeared, it had in reality all the 
qualities of a feudatory, and the free town was a fief. 

Relations of the Commune to its Suzerain: Homage, Dues. — 
The relations between the inhabitants and their lord, their re- 
ciprocal obligations, were identical with those which in feudal 
society united the suzerains with their noble vassals. 

The lord had duties toward his townsmen just as toward his 
barons, and he promised not only to respect their privileges but 
to give protection. " I will procure them peace with all persons," 
the count of Flanders said, in 1127, in the communal charter of 
Saint-Omer ; " I will maintain and defend them against my men." 

[1 Chef de sens.] 



36 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

In return, the town, like a vassal, owed its lord homage, aids, 
and military service. Examples of the homages which the com- 
munes rendered through their magistrates, are extremely numer- 
ous. They were in form nearly like those of a fief : " We swear," 
said the consuls of Perigueux, " to keep faith to our lord, king 
Philip II, the illustrious king of France, and to his heirs, against 
all men and all women living or dead." This oath was repeated 
at each change of suzerain, and even in certain localities, every 
time the municipal government was renewed. 

The pecuniary obligations varied. Some communes owed their 
lords taille, but it was always a taille that was limited in advance, 
and invariable. Beyond that sum, fixed once for all, the baron 
could impose no fiscal charge upon his burghers. Many towns, 
by virtue of their privileges, were even completely exempt from 
the taille. All, without exception, under the same regulation as 
the feudatories, were required to furnish subsidies; that is, the 
feudal aids in the four fixed cases. 

Military Service of the Communes. — The communes owed 
their lords military service also, which consisted of the host and 
the chevauchee.^ The community was liable for this service only 
within a certain distance of the commune or during a fixed num- 
ber of days and no more. According to an act of 1212, Sisteron 
equipped for its lord, the count of Forcalquier, one hundred foot- 
men and five knights : in case of necessity only, during one month 
of the year at the most, and the men were not obliged to go beyond 
the limits of the county. In 1257, the same place promised 
Charles of Anjou to arm two hundred men — fifty of them were 
to be cross-bowmen — to serve at their own expense for fifty days 
each year throughout the counties of Provence and Forcalquier. 
In 1 1 76, Nice owed to the count of Provence one hundred guards 
for one chevauchee between the Siagne and the Var, and fifty 
guards for one chevauchee between the Siagne and the Rhone. 
In other places this obligation was much less heavy; the service 
to which the little commune of Bruyeres in Picardy was bound, 

[^ Ost et chevauchie. Host was the obligation of accompanying the lord upon 
his expeditions ; chevauchee, that of accompanying him on his incursions into a 
hostile country.] 



THE COMMUNES 37 

was limited to a single day. Certain localities, like Marseilles 
and Bayonne, furnished their contingents at sea ; in 1242, Henry 
III of England ordered the people of Bayonne to send their galleys 
to la Rochelle and to do that place as much harm as possible. 
These obligations were not absolute; they were accompanied by 
certain reservations. For example, the people of Valmy, in 1202, 
did not owe the host and chevauchee to the countess Blanche of 
Troyes unless she was with the army, or at least unless someone 
was present from her household. Often also it was stipulated 
that this aid would be required in case of invasion only, or that 
it would not be exacted against this or that person, notably against 
the king, the emperor, or the church. Like the feudal castles, 
the free towns were frequently " deliverable and surrenderable " 
at the first demand of the lord. 

The service of arms was not particularly agreeable to the 
people of the towns, especially in the north. The expeditions 
tore the peaceful and commercial burghers from their occupations 
and ways of life, usually to realize an ambition in which they had 
no interest. In general they did not play a brilliant role in them. 
In 1 127, the chatelain of Ghent, if the chronicler Galbert is to be 
believed, ordered the inhabitants to assemble their commune and 
to come and attack the castle of Bruges, " because they had the 
reputation of being famous in sieges and battles," and their forces 
were " innumerable." But such testimonies are rare. Espe- 
cially, care should be taken against thinking that the French 
towns exercised in the wars of the twelfth and thirteenth cen- 
turies the great influence that modern historians have been pleased 
to attribute to them. A misunderstanding of the text of a chroni- 
cler is responsible for the idea that at the time of the German 
invasion of 1214 the urban militia helped to defend the national 
soil. Their conduct at Bouvines was far from being as glorious 
as has been believed. With ranks broken at the beginning of the 
action, in exposing the king they all but compromised the fortune 
of the day. If burghers rendered good service it was behind 
their ramparts. The kings of England understood this, and it was 
with this thought in mind that, to assure the defense of their con- 
tinental towns, they established communes in most of them. 
Likewise in France, Corbie was able to resist the count of Flan- 



38 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

ders, Philip of Alsace, in 1185 ; and Mantes, besieged by the king 
of England in 1188, defended itself until relieved by Philip Au- 
gustus. As for fighting away from home, they did not care for 
it. So they frequently sought to redeem their military obligations. 
Arras, in place of furnishing one thousand men-at-arms, wa& 
authorized to pay three thousand livres; Beauvais gave, as she 
chose, either fifteen hundred livres or five hundred men-at-arms. 
In the thirteenth century, in all the places depending upon the 
royal power, the impost of blood was commuted gradually into 
an impost of money, and there no longer existed any personal 
service except the obligation of keeping the watch. But this was 
still not of a nature to distinguish the towns from the fiefs. More 
than one lord sought in this unknightly fashion to free himself 
from military duty. 

Seigniorial Rights of the Communes. — While the communes 
fulfilled feudal obligations toward their suzerains, they exercised 
in their turn a series of seigniorial rights. To begin with, as they 
acquired domains they might infeudate them, and thus create 
vassals whose duty it was to follow their banners. Ordinarily the 
cities of the south could point to many vassals among their de- 
pendents ; in 1220 Pierre and Geraud Amies rendered avowal and 
homage to Avignon for the villages and castles which they held 
from it. By the same right as the nobles the communes had a 
clearly defined place in the aristocratic hierarchy. 

Just as among the barons some were entirely independent of 
all royal interference, while others remained strictly dependent 
upon their suzerain, so the bond of fidelity which attached the 
urban centers to their masters might be either close or extremely 
lax. The Italian towns were the most free. Those of southern 
France, notably of Provence, were scarcely less independent. 
The commune of Apt owed oath of fidelity to the Empire and 
service at the imperial court, but with this exception it was en- 
tirely free. Aries, which comprised three hundred fortified 
houses surmounted by towers, conducted itself in the thirteenth 
century as a sovereign state. In 1222, it acquired from the abbot 
Montmajour the castle of Miramas; in 1224, it bought the seign- 
iory of Aureilles, in the direction of la Crau ; in 1225, it obtained 
from Hugh of les Baux the Etang de Valcares, the land called 



THE COMMUNES 3'9'. 

Lonclongue, and some vineyards on the Isle de la Camargue ;^ in 
1226, it lent forty thousand sous to Raymond VII of Toulouse, 
and received in exchange the places of le Baron, Malmissane, and 
Notre-Dame of the Sea ; at the same time the council of the town 
deputed twelve citizens to make a treaty " of alliance, friendship, 
and fellowship " with the king of France, Louis VIII. Another 
year the general council and the heads of the trades delegated 
eight citizens of Aries to negotiate with the count of Provence. 
They were given full powers to dispose of even the sovereignty 
of the city. These examples, occurring within a few years, show 
how real this autonomy was. Few lords had a prouder emblem 
than that which in the twelfth century was displayed upon the 
municipal seal of Aries. One of the faces represented a town 
dominated by three towers, with this legend, " Urbs Arelatensis 
est hostibus hostis et ensis; " ^ on the reverse was a lion, and the 
words " Nobilis inprimis did solet ira leonis." ^ Marseilles, Be- 
ziers, Narbonne, MontpelHer, Toulouse, and Perigueux were 
scarcely less free. The independence of these rich burghal groups 
is comparable to that of the great feudatories. 

If in Italy and in southern France the lords had reserved to 
themselves only honorary privileges of suzerainty, everywhere 
else they had kept more extensive, real, and direct rights over the 
communes. The communities of northern and north-eastern 
France — of Artois, Picardy, Flanders, and Burgundy — ^had con- 
quered great liberties, their judicial and administrative autonomy ; 
but they were not sovereign states. In political, fiscal, and mili- 
tary matters they were subject, like most fiefs, to strict obligations 
of vassalage. In England and in western France, in the Anglo- 
Norman provinces, the part of the suzerain was still greater. 
In the localities where the Establishments of Rouen had been 
widely adopted, most of the revenues, high justice, and the control 
of the municipal administration belonged to him. The minimum 
of rights which the towns having the rank of commune could 
possess was what remained to the citizens. In the same way the 

\} In the Rhone delta; the body of water known as Etang de Valcares is on 
this island.] 

[2 The city of Aries is to its enemies an enemy and a sword.] 
[8 The wrath of the lion is wont to be called especially noble.] 



40 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

urban centers of Germany were as yet in possession of only re- 
stricted liberties, and it was not until the second half of the 
thirteenth century that they won their entire autonomy. The Ger- 
man, English, and Anglo-Norman towns are comparable to fiefs 
having only partial sovereignty. 

The Bight of War and of Peace. — All these communities pos- 
sessed the right of war and of peace, some without limitation, 
others under certain reservations, and a few within only the nar- 
rowest limits. As early as 1082, Carcassone made war against the 
feudal nobles. A little later Toulouse, Marseilles, Avignon, Peri- 
gueux, and Narbonne formed an alliance, separated, formed an- 
other alliance, entered into hostilities with the lords, avenged their 
injuries arms in hand, besieged hostile towns, and pursued even 
into their castles the nobles who had insulted them. Aries was 
concerned in all the intrigues and all the wars of this region, seek- 
ing friendships and quarrels even beyond the mountains, uniting 
with Genoa against Pisa, but ready some years after to unite 
with Pisa, fighting and making treaties without cessation. This 
perpetual effervescence, which nothing could restrain, was not a 
rare thing in the cities of the south. For the communes of the 
north, which were less free, the right of war and of peace was 
ordinarily restricted. Almost all, however, enjoyed a singular 
privilege somewhat analogous to the right of private war. Origin- 
ally, when they received an offense, they were authorized to burn 
the dwelling of the culprit; this was called the right of arson. 
But, if vengeance was sweet to the hearts of the irascible burgh- 
ers, it might be dangerous to them in a time when the houses, 
ordinarily of wood, gave the flames opportunity to spread through 
the entire town. Accordingly, in place of burning the house of 
the offender it was preferable to tear it down, and the right of 
arson was converted into the right of demolition. When the edi- 
fice which was the object of public hatred was within the town 
wall, the steps to be taken were generally easy enough. But when 
it was a castle situated in the country a real military expedition 
was organized ; the militia was assembled, the vassals called in and 
the aid of allied towns solicited. 

Alliances among the Commnnes. — Finally, the consciousness of 
a similar origin, of a like danger to combat, and of a uniform 



THE COMMUNES 4^ 

policy to pursue, at times united the cities and the bourgs of a 
region into great alliances directed against the common enemy, 
in the same way as in certain countries— in England for ex- 
ample — the greater part of the nobles united against despotic 
kings. In Italy, where the towns were bold and strong, these re- 
lations finally resulted in powerful leagues, against which feudal- 
ism, and even the imperial power, sometimes broke. The fortunes 
of the Lombard league are well known. Thanks to these feder- 
ations, the most important cities, associating lesser localities with 
their destinies, transformed themselves into veritable republics. 
It was by forming confederations among themselves, or with 
peasants of the country, or with lords of their neighborhood, that 
the German cities succeeded in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and 
fifteenth centuries in protecting their commerce and saving their 
independence. The league of the Rhine and that of Swabia alike 
had their days of glory. In southern France, too, the great centers 
likewise constituted durable alliances, — less illustrious, however, 
because they were not participants in such important events. 
Aries, Avignon, Marseilles, and a lord, Barral of les Baux, in 
1247, concluded an offensive and defensive league which was to 
last fifty years. Each commune agreed to maintain one hundred 
horsemen in time of war and fifty in time of peace. Marseilles 
and Avignon were besides to arm ten vessels for the defense of 
the Camargue during the two months of harvest. In the north 
these alliances were very much more rare. Association through 
an imitated charter did not create between the " mistress of inter- 
pretation " and its affiliated towns more than a constitutive, or ele- 
mental bond. In Flanders, in the twelfth century, a beginning 
was made upon a sort of federation of communes of which Arras 
was in a way the metropolis. But in consequence of the vicissi- 
tudes which dismembered this province at the end of the century, 
and a little later created Artois, this union fell to pieces and com- 
mercial rivalries appeared in its place. Elsewhere, the royal oppo- 
sition prevented these timid alliances from becoming leagues 
dangerous to the sovereign authority, and all the attempts of this 
kind were forestalled or severely put down. Even at the end of 
the thirteenth century, the jurisconsult, Beaumanoir, considered 
them a formidable danger, recalled the example of the Lombard 



42 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

towns and of Frederic Barbarossa, and concluded that, as soon 
as such alliances were perceived, they ought to be crushed, their 
franchises abolished, the towns destroyed, the inhabitants im- 
prisoned, and the leaders hanged. 

Internal Constitution of the Communes ; Citizens and Burgesses. 
— Internally the communes were wholly or in part masters of 
their affairs. They made laws, dispensed justice, presided over 
the public administration, and managed their finances. But what 
are we to understand by the word commune ? Of what elements 
was this controlling group composed ? Originally, it is to be pre- 
sumed, those who had conspired to obtain the concession of liber- 
ties from their lords ruled in the free towns. But was this associ- 
ation numerous and open to all who wished to enter it? Or, 
on the contrary, was it a closed coterie? In the heroic epoch of 
struggles and perilous negotiations, everything would indicate 
that the leaders were obliged to recruit as many auxiliaries as 
possible and that all the inhabitants were doubtless brought into 
the commune, some even against their will. This broad regime of 
universal participation was perpetuated in certain centers. Wil- 
liam, count of Forcalquier, granting, in 1206, a charter to Man- 
osque, permitted the inhabitants to assemble whenever they should 
think it proper. At Marseilles, the entire people was consulted 
upon important matters. At Lyons, the public acts were entitled 
as follows : " We, the citizens, people, and community of Lyons, 
assembled according to usage, etc. ..." Likewise at Beauvais, 
Senlis, and Rouen, whoever resided within the walls or in the 
suburbs had to swear allegiance to the commune. " If some re- 
fuse," said the charter of Compiegne, " all the others will do 
justice upon their goods." In such cases all the inhabitants with- 
out exception received the title of citizens or of burgesses ; citizens 
in the episcopal cities, burgesses in the other towns. 

But most often the exercise of political rights was a monopoly 
in the hands of a privileged class. In some instances such rights 
were denied to serfs, natural children, and debtors, or again, to 
the entire laboring class. Many municipal constitutions, for ex- 
ample, those of Soissons, Noyon, and Laon, declared that to enjoy 
.these privileges it was not enough to reside within the walls, but 



THE COMMUNES 43 

that it was necessary to own a house there. Besides, after having 
satisfied the necessary requirements, an entry-tax must be paid, 
which varied acording to the place, sometimes according to 
the wealth of the candidate. In these cases, proprietors alone par- 
ticipated in the benefits and the honors of the association. 

Just as political rights had to be acquired, so also they could 
be lost because of unworthiness. At Tournai a murder caused the 
civil degradation of the person guilty of it, but he might be re- 
stored to his former status upon the payment of four livres of 
Paris, 

As for nobles and churchmen, their situation varied ; admitted 
in some places, they were kept out in others. In Italy and in 
southern France, vavasors, captains, and knights held an import- 
ant place in the towns and enjoyed all the public liberties, but in 
the northern centers, ordinarily both nobles and clergy were courte- 
ously excluded ; they were at times authorized to swear allegiance 
to the commune, but they did not enter it. This law, nevertheless, 
like all those of the middle ages, had a goodly number of excep- 
tions. At Saint-Quentin and at Aire there were knights in the 
body politic. An act of Philip Augustus in 1180, relative to 
Corbie, specified that the municipal association was composed of 
knights, clergy, and confederated burghers. It was even true, 
at the beginning of the thirteenth century, that a powerful baron, 
Enguerrand of Coucy, was a citizen of Laon, and a lord of Pon- 
thieu was mayor of Abbeville. -But these exceptions did not 
weaken the prevailing rule. 

Thus, in many cases the liberties belonged only to a minority ; 
the lower class, the artisans, or, as they said, the common people, 
had no part in the administration. The members of the rich com- 
mercial class, with the addition in the south of some nobles, alone 
exercised power ; they alone were citizens or burgesses, while the 
manants were not. " The manants," said a contemporary, " are 
those who live in the towns and cities and do not have the burghal 
privileges." And in proportion as the prosperity of the towns in- 
creased, as the roiinicipal privileges became more desirable and 
the honors more lucrative, new admissions were more rare, and 
the governing class was more and more exclusive. While demo- 



44 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

cratic here and there, ordinarily this regime sanctioned the reign 
of a sort of aristocracy of wealth ; sometimes it was even the prey 
of an oligarchy. 

General Assembly of the Inhabitants. — In a certain number of 
communes, the source of all authority was in a general assembly of 
the citizens or burgesses. It not only named the magistrates, but 
itself did part of the work of government, — deliberated upon im- 
portant affairs, and accepted or rejected imposts. In the towns of 
the south, this assembly bore the name parliament; at Aix, at 
the beginning of the thirteenth century, the notables ^ came to- 
gether from time to time " in full parliament." ^ At Narbonne, the 
assembly was convoked at least once a month, and at Sisteron and 
Montpellier also very frequently. At Marseilles the whole people 
gathered on the square of Sainte-Marie-des-Accoules, before the 
town hall.^ From the balcony they were informed as to the de- 
liberations of the council and of the projects worked out, and the 
people approved them by acclamation or rejected them by sharp 
cries. At Lyons in 1292, all the inhabitants without exception 
were summoned to the church of Saint-Nizier, solemnly, at the 
sound of the great bell, in order to accept or reject the protection 
of the king of France. A great multitude of people was present 
(more than two-thirds of the citizens), and the entire assembly 
accepted what was proposed. And we read in this document 
that this meeting was in no way extraordinary, that it was ac- 
cording to custom * — an interesting fact. Here were at least the 
appearances of direct government. But this was possible only 
in the simplest cases, when the questions were clearly put and 
when the body politic in assembly had only to come to a decision 
of yes or no. Also, it might be asked whether the consultation 
secured a really true, satisfactory expression of the sentiments of 
the majority. This could scarcely be affirmed, especially with re- 
spect to the large towns. Save when it possessed the right of 
electing the public officers, the assembly could exercise upon the 
conduct of affairs only an intermittent influence, only an insecure 
control. 

P Probi homines^ [8 Palatium communis Massilie.l 

P in pleno parlemento^ [* " more solito"\ 



THE COMMUNES 45 

Municipal Magistrates: Towns of the Sonth.— Quite different 
was the role of the magistrates. It was they who really ruled the 
communes, and administered them. 

There was nothing uniform in the organization of these magis- 
tracies, either in regard to their number, their titles, or the man- 
ner of their choice. In southern France, they often received the 
name consuls or councilors;^ there were consuls at Marseilles, 
Avignon, Narbonne, Lectoure, Albi, Montpellier, and elsewhere. 
At Toulouse, where their meeting was known as the chapter,^ they 
were called sometimes consules de capitulo, and sometimes capit- 
ularii, a term which in common speech has given the word capi- 
touls. Hence the town hall came to be designated as the capitol 
—a name which in no way dates back to antiquity, as local pride 
has vainly maintained since the fourteenth century. At Bordeaux 
and in the surrounding region, at la Reole, Mont-de-Marsan, and 
Dax, the power was in the hands of a mayor and jurats ^ — from 
this word was drawn in the sixteenth century, the learned ex- 
pression jurade, to designate their college. Elsewhere, it was 
syndics that governed. 

The number of these officers often varied from two to six ; oc- 
casionally it was larger. There were eight consuls at Avignon, 
twelve at Marseilles, twenty-four at Toulouse; and fifty jurats 
at Bordeaux. At Montpellier, they distinguished between twelve 
major consuls charged with the administration, and seven consuls 
representing the seven classes of the inhabitants. 

Generally they did not govern alone, but with the aid of one or 
two councils which were real deliberative bodies. Thus there was 
at Marseilles in the thirteenth century a body of eighty-nine per- 
sons. The great majority of its members, or eighty, were taken 
from the first class of citizens, that of the rich burghers; the 
second class, that of clerics who had the title of doctor, furnished 
three representatives ; the remainder was made up of six heads of 
trades. At Aries the public council included the archbishop, the 
consuls, and the foremost inhabitants.* At Bordeaux, under the 
English rule, in the thirteenth century the magistrates had the aid 

\^ Consules, or consiliarii!\ [^/urah.] 

[2 Capitulum.] [* Principes.l 



46 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

of two assemblies, one of thirty councilors, the other of three 
hundred citizens elected under the title of defensors. 

The manner of choosing the magistrates varied from one city to 
another. At Lectoure and Albi, the consuls were elected by direct 
suffrages of the whole body of citizens ; but this regime was too 
simple to be adopted everywhere, and the confused minds of the 
people of those times often preferred modes that were infinitely 
complicated. They usually accorded part of the voting power to 
the members of the commune ; they also considered that the magis- 
trates retiring from office should have a special voting privilege. 
These two elements were combined in unequal proportions, and 
from this combination resulted electoral bodies which were most 
diversely constituted. Thus at Montpellier the burgesses named 
electors of the second degree, who met with the retiring consuls 
and both together chose sixty notables, from whom the new 
officers were drawn by lot. Very frequently the inhabitants of 
the towns were divided into several classes, each having its fixed 
number of representatives. The nobles in particular almost always 
elected magistrates distinct from those of the burghers. At Aries, 
there were two consuls from each order, and later four noble 
consuls against eight from the burghers. At Cordes, they were 
two against six, and at Rabastens, two against eight. At Nimes, in 
1208, to aid in the maintenance of the public peace it was de- 
cided that the burghers should name the consuls of the nobles, 
and the nobles the consuls of the burghers. In a few towns the 
seignior preserved the right of influencing the election. Thus 
it was with the archbishop at Aries. In 1207, the retiring officers 
not being able to agree as to their successors, the archbishop 
created new consuls by his own authority, " and the people ac- 
cepted them with gratitude and good will." Elsewhere the suzer- 
ain chose these magistrates from a list drawn up and presented 
by the electors. Sometimes he only ratified the election, without 
participating in it. The only characteristic common to all these 
methods of choice was, that the high offices in the towns of the 
south were accessible only to two classes, the nobles and the rich 
burghers, but not to the lesser inhabitants. 

Almost everywhere the citizens were divided into factions to 
such an extent that it was at times impossible to find among them 



THE COMMUNES 47 

impartial depositories of public power. Consequently a number 
of towns in Provence, following the example of the Italian cities, 
had recourse to that singular institution, the podesta. Marseilles 
in 1214, Aries in 1220, and Avignon in 1223 called to their aid 
outsiders of good repute, almost always Italian nobles who, in- 
different to local rivalries, swore to govern " without hate, with- 
out favor, without fear, and without personal profit." They were 
then invested with full powers and the entire constitution was 
subordinated to them. This was provisional dictatorship super- 
imposed upon the communal regime. It lasted until the middle 
of the thirteenth century. 

The most characteristic trait of the organization of the southern 
towns, which stands out in spite of the infinite variety of forms, 
was their independence. They governed themselves, through 
magistrates whom they had chosen themselves — or at most their 
lords intervened in the choice. Very free externally, they were 
very autonomous internally. 

Magistracies of the Northern Communes. — The same conditions 
did not exist in the north. There also, however, communal magis- 
trates bore various names. In Flanders, Artois, Picardy, and 
Burgundy they were generally called echevins, like the local 
judges of the Carolingian epoch whose functions they had in 
part preserved. Elsewhere, and notably in the west, they were 
called jures, a term which is identical with jurats, which was ap- 
plied to the magistrates of the region of Bordeaux. Often they 
were called peers. In certain regions there were accumulations 
of the most varied names. Saint-Quentin had two councils juxta- 
posed, that of the echevins, and that of the jures. Lille was 
governed by echevins, rewards, voire-jures,^ jures, and counts 
of the Hansa. Rouen and all the localities where the celebrated 
Establishments of Rouen were in force, was administered by an 
assembly of a hundred peers, and by two small bodies, one of 
twelve echevins, the other of twelve councilors, their members 
being chosen among the hundred peers. Besides, at the head of 
each of these communes was a personage (sometimes two or 
three) invested with the supreme authority of the municipality. 

P Vere-iurati.l 



48 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

This was the mayor. By exception, at Tournai this officer was 
called the provost, at Autun the vierg, and at Lille the reward. 

The charters give but scant information as to the principles 
according to which these magistrates were chosen. It has long 
been repeated that the fundamental character of every commune 
was to have the magistrates elected periodically by the inhabitants. 
This is an error. In many communes, and in those of not the 
least power, the magistracies were filled by the lords. At Cambrai 
the archbishop named the echevins and the jures. The vierg of 
Autun was simply the representative of the duke of Burgundy. 
The duke also chose the mayor and the echevins of Dijon. Ac- 
cording to the Establishments of Rouen the mayor was to be 
chosen by the duke of Normandy from a list of three candidates 
drawn up by the municipal body. The charter of Corbie said 
" the echevins and the office of echevin of the said town belong 
to the church." Sometimes also the college of public officers was 
cooptative. At Rouen, the real power was concentrated in the 
hands of the hundred peers, who selected certain among them 
to perform the duties of echevins and councilors; when one of 
these peers died the others chose his successor immediately, with- 
out consulting the rest of the commune. And from all this it 
will be clear, too, that often the magistrates were not subjected 
to periodical reelections. At Bruges, Brussels, in fact in many 
localities, their tenure of office was for life. But again in other 
towns, like Athies, the mayor and the twelve jures were named 
annually by the common election and assent of the town. These 
anomalies are explained if one recalls that the communal consti- 
tutions — which were really contracts entered into as the result of 
negotiation, purchase, and war — were made up of compromises. 
The burgesses, far from modifying throughout the exist- 
ing seigniorial administration, retained as much of it as they 
could, and were content to adapt it bodily to their needs, in so 
far as their lord would consent : in some cases they confiscated 
the organs of that administration to their own use ; in other cases 
they were obliged to share them with the suzerain. Thus the 
body of echevins, the old Carolingian tribunal which the barons 
had appropriated, became almost everywhere the town council, 
often preserving the aspect of a mixed institution, at once feudal 



THE COMMUNES 49 

and communal. It is proper to add that more and more, in the 
course of the thirteenth century, the towns tended to dispossess 
the lords and take complete possession of this office of echevin and 
make it annual. Ghent attained this end in 1212, Montdidier in 
1220, Brussels in 1234, Lille in 1235, and Bruges in 1241. A 
similar concession was granted to Douai in 1228; but, curiously, 
the magistrates of this town were to be reelected only every thir- 
teen months. 

If this transformation increased the independence of the com- 
munes viewed as wholes, the mass of the inhabitants profited but 
little by it. The people of the lower class had perhaps taken part 
in the communal revolution, had perhaps sustained with all their 
might the public demands ; but it does not appear that they aspired 
from the first to municipal honors. They had simply changed 
masters. Instead of being lessened, the distance which separated 
the higher burghers from the lower classes continually increased. 
However varied and complicated were the modes of election, 
their uniform result was to maintain continuously the same fam- 
ilies in power. These privileged clans, which always furnished 
the magistrates, bore in the towns of Flanders and of the east 
the special name of lineages or of parages. They formed a close 
aristocracy, which became more and more close. Sometimes they 
went back to ancient titles in order to justify and legalize, in a 
way, the monopoly which they enjoyed. Thus at Verdun, toward 
the end of the thirteenth century, three families claimed that they 
had formerly furnished the sum of twenty thousand livres to 
buy from the bishop the viscountship of the town, and they made 
use of this to claim exclusive possession of the municipal magis- 
tracies. Less learned, and less independent of all seigniorial inter- 
ference, the municipal constitutions of the northern towns were 
still more oligarchical than those of the southern cities. 

Powers of Commuiial Magistrates: Justice. — These magis- 
trates, who were organs, though not always mandataries of the 
commune, exercised powers in its name. These powers, or pre- 
rogatives, were precisely the same as were attached to the pos- 
session of a barony. First of all — and this was one of their 
essential rights — they dispensed justice to their fellow citizens, 
as a lord did to his villains. In the middle ages it was said that 



50 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

" fief and justice are one." So, the powerful centers of the south 
and the sworn towns of the north possessed a jurisdiction as un- 
limited as that of the lords. They imposed fines, and inflicted 
blows and. capital punishment. They had their pillories where 
they exposed and flogged their criminals and their gibbets where 
the worst were executed by the hangman. Some have tried to 
make this right of justice one of the essential attributes of the 
communal towns. This is an error. Certain of these communes — 
recognized as such in all the documents, including their charters — 
possessed it only in part. In the centers where the constitution 
called the Establishments of Rouen was in force the jures, who 
were elected each year by the peers, took cognizance of civil and 
criminal causes ; but with reference to crimes, they exercised only 
middle and low justice. High justice belonged to the officers of 
the suzerain. The former imposed fines, and punishment by 
imprisonment and the pillory, but only the latter had the right 
to decree mutilations or death. There were communes, too, which 
possessed jurisdiction simply in matters of police and the streets ; 
and in some, even, as at Chauny in Picardy, there was not the 
least trace of jurisdiction to be found. 

Scholars have long discussed the origin of these judicial pre- 
rogatives, and have asked how simple burghers succeeded in 
such large measure in dismembering the feudal sovereignties. 
To explain this fact it must first be recalled that the tribunals of 
echevins were often the centers of new franchises, that these 
magistrates, while remaining judges, frequently became the first 
officers of the commune. When, on the contrary, circumstances 
left to this magistracy its seigniorial character, the community 
none the less acquired a jurisdiction of its own. This came about 
through the fateful law in accordance with which every authority 
tends to increase in power ; through a natural extension of the 
police rights with which the municipal administrators were in- 
vested, the rights of vengeance, arson, and demolition which they 
exercised against all who insulted the town or injured its interests ; 
and finally, through that solidarity which, in virtue indeed of the 
charters of foundation, ordered all the burghers to render assis- 
tance and mutual aid. The practical working-out of the rights 



THE COMMUNES 5 1 

and usages brought with it a kind of jurisdiction which it was 
easy to increase by a continuous series of usurpations. 

Judicial Division of the Towns. — But one might get a false 
idea of these towns, even of the most favored among them, by 
imagining that the entire population was dependent upon the 
municipal magistrates. As a rule they contained enclaves, islets as 
it were, which depended upon the king, the suzerain, or partic- 
ular lords. In the episcopal cities, the bishop and his chapter 
always retained jurisdiction over the cloister, often also over a 
part of the surrounding locality, sometimes even over the entire 
"city," for it might happen that the " bourg " alone was free. 
The churches and the abbeys likewise preserved their domains. 
Frequently the castle and the fortress were under a chatelain, 
a viscount, or a vidame — a vassal or officer of the suzerain, the 
bishop or the king. And again other persons might possess, 
within the walls themselves, fiefs exempt from the jurisdiction 
of the communes ; for example, a street, or a quarter, as that of 
the abbey of Saint Vaast at Arras. At Amiens, the municipal jus- 
tice was exercised side by side with that of the bishop, who was 
represented by a vidame, with that of the king, who was repre- 
sented by a chatelain, and with that of the count, who was repre- 
sented by another chatelain. Thus the commune never comprised 
the entire territory of the town wherein it was established. It 
strove, it is true, to conquer it bit by bit, profiting by every cir- 
cumstance, proceeding sometimes by encroachment and usurpa- 
tion, or again by negotiation and purchase. Tournai took from 
the bishop all his judicial power. But those towns were very 
rare which attained this end. Even when they succeeded in 
ruling the entire territory comprised within their boundaries, 
there still remained a considerable number of inhabitants whose 
social condition exempted them from the communal law. The 
nobles remained amenable to feudal jurisdiction, and the clergy 
to that of the church ; the serfs always belonged to their masters ; 
and besides all these there were certain classes of persons to be 
found in most localities who, under the name of " freemen " or 
^' free burghers " or " free sergeants," enjoyed various immunities 
and depended upon this or that lord, on the church, or on the 
king. These remarks, too often omitted by the historians of the 



52 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

towns, are indispensable if one desires to know what a commune 
was like from the inside, and how its inhabitants lived from day 
to day. 

But these constitutions, so different from one place to another, 
these judicial prerogatives so unevenly divided, and this compli- 
cation of domains interwoven one with another even to chaos, 
were not of a nature, either, to distinguish the towns from the 
fiefs. It suffices to glance at the map of some feudal province to 
see how much the noble lands encroached upon one another, in 
what inextricable tangles they were, and with how many holes 
the fiefs were here and there perforated. 

Legislative and Administrative Powers of Communal Magistrates. 
— The communal magistrates had legislative power, issued 
ordinances, and regulated industry. They received fines, admin- 
istered — very badly, it is true — the municipal finances, and man- 
aged communal property. They fixed and levied imposts neces- 
sary for the maintenance of the buildings and fortifications and 
for the conduct of affairs; such as the tallies, tolls, octrois, and 
market dues. They commanded the militia, drilled them, and 
led them to battle. There was, nevertheless, one privilege which 
the towns, even the most favored, never shared with the lords, 
at least in France ; that of coining money. Whatever may have 
been claimed, no pieces stamped with the communal device have 
been found.^ 

In the exercise of these numerous prerogatives the magistrates 
had of course the aid of minor officials. Such were the municipal 
receiver,^ and the clerk of the commune, who besides performing 
the duties of a modern town clerk, served at the same time as 
clerk of the court of justice. Such also were numerous employees : 
sergeants, ushers, police officers, watchmen, and porters. In the 
important towns, certain powers were even delegated to com- 
missions, like that of paiseurs, sort of justices of the peace charged 
with a role of conciliation before lawsuits ; that of gard'-orphenes, 

1 It is probably necessary to make exceptions in the case of certain small copper 
coins, mailles, pittes, and pottgeoises, which seem to have been issued in certain 
towns by communal authority. But these subsidiary pieces, created to facilitate 
transactions, did not, properly speaking, constitute real money. 

[2 Called in the north, argentier, dSpensier, tresoirier ; in the south, clavairei\ 



THE COMMUNES 53 

to whom was confided the wardship of orphans ; and many others, 
to keep up the fortifications, see to the assessment of imposts, and 
so on. 

Commanal Seal. — Finally, the communes, which like the barons 
enjoyed seigniorial rights, had seals, symbols of the judicial, 
legislative, and administrative power which they possessed. This 
was a mark of emancipation, and of entrance into the feudal class. 
At first they had but a single communal seal. Later this great 
seal was reserved for solemn acts of general interest, and the 
seal of causes, called also the seal of recognizance, of smaller 
form, was made for use in acts of secondary importance, to give 
authenticity to judgments, private contracts, and so on. These 
imprints, which have been preserved in considerable numbers 
are very interesting. They are undisputed documents coming 
from the communes themselves, and reveal, each by its peculiar 
embossing, the nature and pretensions of these small seigniories. 
Upon some, as that of Saint-Omer, is a sitting of the communal 
council ; on others, as that of Arras, one may see the seat of the 
municipality, the monumental house of the merchants, become 
the town hall. Others give a reduced image of the place and of 
its enclosing walls. Often they are of a warlike appearance, re- 
presenting a strong castle, a man-at-arms, or the mayor standing 
clothed in coat of mail, with helmet on his head and buckler and 
sword in his hand. At Poitiers, Saint-Riquier, Saint- Josse, Pe- 
ronne, and Doullens it is a knight fully armed that symbolizes 
the burghal power. 

The Watch-tower. — The commune, moreover, was a fortified 
place, analogous to the seigniorial castle. It was surrounded by 
walls, and did not lack even the donjon, which was its watch- 
tower. This was a high tower, rising above one of the squares 
of the town, and in it hung the public bells. The ringers, always 
on the watch (whence their name of watchmen), abode there, and 
looking out from a single turret to all points of the horizon, gave 
warning to the people as soon as any danger appeared. They 
also called the burghers to the assembly, the workmen to their 
tasks, and the inhabitants to rest at night by sounding the 
curfew. And since at this time the cities had not yet erected the 
admirable town halls v/hich came in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and 



54 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

sixteenth centuries, it was the watch-tower, in default of a hall, 
which often served as their public building. In the lower part 
of this tower they kept their prisoners. Above was the assembly 
hall of the echevins ; and still higher were deposited the archives, 
charters, seals, and treasure. This was the center, the rallying 
place of the town. 

On the whole, the emancipated communities, like the knights, 
were a part of the feudal hierarchy; they were vassals and su- 
zerains. Within, whether their constitution was very aristo- 
cratic or only half so, whether the magistrates, depositories of 
the public authority, were many or few, the general fact remains 
that they exercised like the feudatories, judicial, legislative, and 
financial powers, and that the free towns had their own seal and 
their watch-tower, which were emblems of a seigniory, and pal- 
pable evidences of their resemblance to baronies. When the king 
destroyed a commune and appropriated it, he had the seal broken 
and the watch-tower demolished; when he took possession of a 
fief, he had the donjon razed. Internally, as externally, the com- 
mune had the features of a collective seigniory. 

Public Peace in the Communes. — It must not be believed that 
the charters of enfranchisement put an end to the impassioned 
struggles between the towns and the lords. Without doubt the 
communities were no longer victims of overwhelming exactions; 
but they sought incessantly to develop their prerogatives, while 
the suzerains tried in their turn to recover what they had lost 
by past concessions. Also, without respect for the jurisdictions 
juxtaposed with their own, the communities incessantly attempted 
to expel those feudal powers that had retained domains or rights 
upon the municipal territory. Now since emancipation had af- 
forded them powerful means of attack and resistance the result 
was bitter struggles and sharp and prolonged crises. While 
there is a charm in the possession of liberty and the strength to 
fight, even at the risk of being conquered, it is also to be pre- 
sumed that the townspeople often had to suffer. 

Conflicts with the Church. — It was chiefly with the church that 
the burghers had incessant, sometimes tragic struggles. If the 
clergy, on their part, nourished a spirit of systematic hostility, 
the burghers showed equally malevolent sentiments toward them. 



THE COMMUNES 55 

Especially, they tried to subject the churchmen to the communal 
taille and to force them to contribute to the public expenses^ 
whence acts of resistance and violent conflicts. At the begin- 
ning of the thirteenth century, the people of Verdun having com- 
pelled the clergy to pay taxes, the bishop assembled troops, be- 
sieged the city, and forced it to surrender. The communes vio- 
lated, too, the privileges of jurisdiction belonging to the chapters 
and the abbeys, pursuing malefactors even upon their domains, 
in spite of the right of sanctuary, and arresting the vassals and 
the servants of the clergy. At Noyon, in 1222, the magistrates 
seized a servitor of the chapter of Notre Dame, in the cemetery 
of that church, and threw him into prison. Forthwith the chap- 
ter put the town under an interdict and excommunicated the 
mayor and the jures. Then the burghers at repeated cries of 
" Commune ! Commune ! " assembled, invaded the cloister, and 
the cathedral, where they wounded the official, the dean, and a 
canon. The monks were pursued into the streets, insulted, and 
hooted. At Laon, in 1294, two nobles maltreated a burgher. 
His fellow-townsmen turned out against them, but they took 
refuge in the cathedral. A dignitary, hoping to save them, sent 
them up into a tower, and the crowd, being refused their sur- 
render, guarded the doors. On the morrow the tocsin called the 
inhabitants to arms, and the crowd tumultuously invaded the 
church, seized the nobles and their protector, dragged them by 
their feet and hair through the streets and squares to the house 
of the maltreated burgher, struck them with their fists, and with 
clubs and hatchets, and threw them into prison, where one died. 
At Beauvais, Rheims, and Arras, the burghers all pledged them- 
selves not to sell anything to the clergy or to their agents ; they 
would thus starve them. 

For their part, the ecclesiastical lords were scarcely more ten- 
der. The abbot of Vezelay and the bishop of Beauvais put their 
respective towns in a state of blockade, forbidding the inhabi- 
tants of neighboring localities to bring provisions to their villains. 
In 1305, the bishop of Beauvais, imitating the exploits of the 
archbishop of Cambrai, gave his own city over to armed bands 
who subjected it to pillage, fire, and bloodshed. Elsewhere the 
ecclesiastical courts, supported by the royal tribunals, crushed 



56 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

the communities with fines. The history of the commune of 
Soissons was but one long series of conflicts between the burghal 
magistracy and the chapter. Beauvais, Corbie, Laon, and Saint- 
Riquier were in perpetual hostility to the church. 

Brotherhoods in the Towns of Southern France. — There was 
hardly more peace in the southern cities, where the inhabitants, 
to organize the struggle against their common enemies, established 
veritable secret societies, under the name of brotherhoods. At 
Marseilles, in 1212, the inhabitants formed a brotherhood " to 
defend the innocent and repress unjust violences." Toulouse and 
Bayonne had their political brotherhoods, which were very much 
feared by the lords. At Avignon in 121 5, the nobles complained 
of having been despoiled by the brotherhoods. At Aries, in the 
first half of the thirteenth century, the archbishop was constantly 
struggling against these sworn associations. About 1232, a sir- 
vente^ by Bertrand d'Alamanon accused the prelate of having 
caused a certain Junquere (perhaps William of Jonquieres) to 
perish in prison for having been one of the chiefs of the brother- 
hoods. In 1235, one of these societies overturned the podesta, 
seized the government, imposed the oath of obedience upon all 
the inhabitants, took possession of the palace of the archbishop, 
and of his lands and stock, and had even the temerity to put the 
church under an interdict — celebrating marriages without ec- 
clesiastical intervention, and forbidding anything to be sold to 
the clergy or even water to be brought to them. Continually 
dissolved, the brotherhoods were as continually reestablished in 
response to the quick and violent passions of the inhabitants. 

Internal and Social Discord. — When the burghers were not 
fighting their common enemies they were fighting among them- 
selves. The body of citizens was usually divided into two or 
more factions, grouped around those families which reserved the 
public honors to themselves and at the same time wrangled over 
them. The wars between these families were endless, being 
transmitted from generation to generation, and so bitter that in 

\} From the Latin, servire ; Old French, serventois. Originally it was a poem of 
the service of the saints ; later it was dedicated to princes and ladies, expressing 
praise or censure. Still later it became, under the use of the troubadours, mostly 
satirical.] 



THE COMMUNES 57 

some of the southern cities, as we have seen, they rendered neces- 
sary the institution of the podesta. 

In the course of the thirteenth century, these family rivalries 
became involved with grave social troubles. In all the towns, let 
us recall, even where the constitution had originally had a demo- ^^ 
cratic character, the power was in the hands of rich burghers, 
who ruled absolutely, and whose unchangeable and indolent lot 
a cleric of Troyes envied in a romance entitled " Renard le Contre- 
fait." This caste, as exclusive and narrow as that of the feudal 
lords, was also as harsh toward the people of the lower classes, 
who had supported it — oppressing them with imposts, charges, 
and injustices. But these people, who were the majority of the 
inhabitants, were not long in organizing themselves. They formed 
a little commune within the greater, an association which had its 
lav/s and its chiefs and conspired in its turn, arousing insurrec- 
tions against the aristocracy. The chief sin they laid at the door 
of the dominant coterie was the bad administration of the mun- 
icipal finances. At every turn they accused the magistrates of 
fraud and venality, and claimed the right of supervising their 
administration. " And after that," said Beaumanoir, " when the 
common people demanded that they render accounts to them 
they evaded the demands by saying that they rendered their ac- 
counts to each other." The complaint concerning the finances 
was well founded, for the towns kept running into debt, in Eng- 
land as in France, in the Low Counties as in Germany and in Italy. 
And this led to frequent disorders. At Beauvais in 1233, the 
town was divided between two camps, that of the lower and that 
of the higher people, the latter represented especially by the money 
changers. An uprising resulted; the populace rushed upon the 
money changers, killing some and wounding others. The peace 
was so disturbed that Saint Louis appointed to the ofiice of mayor 
an outsider. Hardly had he arrived when the insurrectionists pur- 
sued him, insulted him, and tore his clothing, crying : " That's 
how we make you mayor." Then the king marched against the 
mutinous town, demolished the houses of the principal culprits, 
and imprisoned fifteen hundred of the factious inhabitants. At 
this date the aristocracy was still too strong to allow its privi- 
leges to be invaded ; but at the end of the thirteenth century, as 



58 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

the evil that the urban populations suffered from had only grown 
worse, there were so many outbreaks of hatred and violence that 
it became impossible to resist them. In the Italian cities the lower 
classes, or as they were called in Florence, the " minor arts," 
succeeded in having representatives in the public councils. In 
Flanders, at Ghent, Douai, Bruges, Ypres, and Arras, the popu- 
lace revolted between 1275 and 1280. At Rouen, about the sarrie 
time, a mayor was assassinated. Before this flood of menacing 
demands the coteries in the towns were obliged to capitulate ; 
and in the course of the fourteenth century the communes of 
Flanders, like those of Germany, were to give a larger place, in 
the election of the magistrates, to the corporations of workmen. 

Seizure of the French Communes by the King. — In France 
it was the royal power which undertook to reestablish the peace 
of the cities and bourgs. As early as the reign of Philip Augus- 
tus, the legists of the crown had proclaimed the principle that 
all the communes of the realm, those which were situated in the 
seigniories of feudatories as well as those of the royal domain, 
were royal towns and depended immediately upon the sovereign. 
Their followers strove successfully to make this doctrine prevail ; 
they evoked " royal cases " from the municipal jurisdictions to 
the king's court, received in Parlement appeals from the communal 
decisions, summoned the communes for service in the king's army, 
controlled the administration of the magistrates, interfered in the 
elections and imposed fines on intractable communes. Desirous 
of satisfying the popular complaints and of restricting the arbi- 
trary power of the oligarchy, the royal power often modified the 
constitutions for the benefit of the common people, but it took 
advantage of the circumstances to confiscate communal liberties. 
The beginning upon this was made under Saint Louis, when the 
chamber of accounts extended its control over the management of 
the municipal finances. The town budgets, many of which have 
come down to us, show that usually the expenses exceeded the 
receipts and that the amount of the debt was generally enormous ; 
but the royal financial administration was in large part respon- 
sible for this disastrous state. Not content with seeing the com- 
munities overloaded with taxes and imposts, it strove to impov- 
erish them ; it overwhelmed them with enormous fines for the least 



THE COMMUNES 59 

fault, certain in this manner to reduce them to its mercy. This 
was a devouring and usurping guardianship, which under the 
pretext of justice despoiled its proteges. Ruined, agitated by- 
revolts of the common people, and tormented by the royal func- 
tionaries, the communes finally asked for liquidation; and that 
meant suppression of their privileges, their autonomy, and their 
independence. Numerous towns had to succumb thus, especially 
under Philip the Fair, and those which survived kept but a 
vain semblance of their former condition. This time again 
royalty acted toward the communes the same as toward the lords. 
We have passed beyond the chronological limits of this study. 
This was necessary, to show the political and social regime to 
which the urban communities were subjected and the consequences 
which it brought in its train. Incessant strifes with the nobles, 
mortal struggles with the clergy, and internal discords and civil 
wars provoked by the oligarchical tyranny of an exclusive caste 
formed the daily condition of the free town in the middle ages, 
down to the day when the constitutions of some were modified 
and others felt the tightening grasp of the royal hand. These 
municipal constitutions were sometimes called " institutions of 
peace," but this turned out to be bitter irony. Never was liberty 
more contentious nor more exclusive than in these little republics,, 
and one may wonder whether the condition of the lower classes 
was not sometimes as rigorous as in the past. In that case the 
communal revolution should be considered as having only removed 
the masses from the power of one man to deliver them over to 
exploitation by a group, only substituted for the lordship of one 
master the collective seigniory of a few burghers. Nevertheless, 
in spite of all its defects, the communal regime had the incon- 
testable merit of awakening public spirit in the towns, of shaking 
off the torpor of the inhabitants, of giving them enthusiasm for 
public causes, and of developing in them the sentiments of noble 
and independent pride which liberty inspires not only in those 
who enjoy its benefits but also in those who try to attain it. 



IV 
TOWNS OF BURGESSY; NEW TOWNS 

Towns of Burgessy. — Under this conventional name, as we 
have seen, are designated those communities which did not have 
the fortune of dismembering to their profit the seigniorial sov- 
ereignty, of gaining even the slightest autonomy, but which 
succeeded nevertheless in limiting the exercise of arbitrary power 
to which they had been subjected. Without the right of war and 
peace, without legislative power, independent jurisdiction, watch- 
tower, or municipal seal, their inhabitants still had guaranties 
against such exactions as imposts, taxes, armed service, and jus- 
tice. In such a case the charter consisted especially of a series 
of limitations imposed upon seigniorial omnipotence ; it was a 
succession of negative provisions. However, it also mentioned 
the prerogatives, or liberties, granted to the inhabitants. But 
these liberties were not of a political order; they were rather 
fiscal, judicial, and commercial favors. 

One of the most celebrated of these documents is the charter 
granted by Louis VII to the little town of Lorris. It is made up 
of thirty-three articles. Let us first note the most important re- 
strictive provisions. No man of Lorris was to be subjected to 
any impost on food-stuffs, to any tolls, market-dues, tariff, or 
watch-duties, or to any tallies or exactions. As for corvees, the 
Icing could not impose any, except to take his wine to Orleans, but 
not elsewhere. Each person was to pay an annual quit-rent of not 
more than six deniers for his house, and an equal sum for every 
arpent of land which he cultivated; (this article was found in 
most of these charters). The right of credit to which the prince 
and his officers were entitled was regulated, and limited to fifteen 

60 



TOWNS OF BURGESSY; NEW TOWNS ' 6r 

days. The inhabitants owed host and chevauchee only on condi- 
tion of being able to return home the evening of the day on 
which they left. The royal provost would dispense justice, but 
the burghers should not be compelled to go out of their towns 
to be judged. They were not to be held in prison if they could 
give bail, nor was the wager of battle to be imposed upon them. 
Lastly the scale of fines was to be reduced. The positive privi- 
leges were of less number : when the provost and the sergeants 
assumed office, they were to swear to observe the customs ; 
security at the fairs and markets of Lorris was to be guaranteed, 
when a serf had lived in a town a year and a day without his 
master reclaiming him, he was to be free. Elsewhere these favors 
were different, as for example at Bourges, where the charter per- 
mitted all the inhabitants to build houses against the town walls, 
and widows to remarry without royal consent. 

There was nothing in these contracts which resembled a con- 
stitutive law ; they were but series of guaranties, or favors. In- 
dividually the inhabitants of Lorris or of Bourges enjoyed divers 
privileges ; collectively they had no rights and did not exist. But 
conditions were not everywhere the same, and other towns of 
burgessy constituted communities, possessed certain rights as col- 
lective bodies. Such was the little place of Beaumont-en-Argonne, 
which received, about 1182, a law of fifty-five articles from the 
archbishop of Rheims, Guillaume aux Blanches-Mains. It was ad- 
ministered by a mayor and jures elected each year by the inhabi- 
tants, who reported their financial administration to the seigniorial 
officers. They were assisted by a council of forty burgesses, who 
had the power of reforming the statutes, and who later added to 
them provisions of civil law in a hundred and thirty-four articles. 
They even had some jurisdiction, dispensing low justice in the 
name of the archbishop, who reserved for his officers only the 
more important cases. A constitution of this kind was singularly 
like the communal type. Beaumont was, indeed, but an embryo 
commune; it lacked only the name. It is almost impossible to 
establish a valid distinction, or draw a hard and fast line between 
these two kinds of towns. 

These liberties were restricted ; the cities and bourgs enjoying 
them were far from being sovereign states. But on the other 



62 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

hand peace ruled in them; and internal discord did not ravage 
them. The advantages of these charters must without doubt have 
outweighed their defects in the eyes of the people of the middle 
ages, for they were appreciated in very eulogistic terms, and they 
spread with extreme rapidity. That of Lorris became the in- 
heritance of more than eighty places in the Isle-de-France, Or- 
leanais, Berry, and Touraine, whence it invaded Burgundy and 
the Anglo-Norman provinces. The law of Beaumont was adopted 
in more than three hundred towns and villages of the north-east : 
the archbishop of Rheims, the dukes of Lorraine, the dukes of 
Luxemburg, and the counts of Chiny vied with one another in 
spreading it on their domains. 

These half-free towns were especially abundant in the center of 
the realm, thus separating the region of the consular municipalities 
from that of the sworn communes. This was because the king of 
France ruled there. He was powerful enough to hinder complete 
emancipation, and clever enough, ordinarily, to grant the com- 
munities the most needed guaranties. There autonomous centers 
were very rare, and those of burgessy very numerous. Orleans 
and Paris never had any other regime than that of burgessy. 

New Towns. — There was also another factor which contributed 
to the spread of these charters ; namely, the creation, from the 
eleventh to the fourteenth century, of numerous new towns. As 
early as the eleventh century many abbeys and lords thought to 
exploit their domains to better advantage by establishing new 
centers of habitation upon them. On a carefully chosen site, with 
boundaries marked by crosses — symbols of the " Peace of God " 
which was to rule there, — a church was erected, an allotment of 
lands made, and an encircling wall built. Also, a charter was pro- 
mulgated offering to settlers inducements in the way of liberties, 
privileges, the creation of a market, distributions of lands, and 
the promise of security. From that time the place became a 
sanctuary, protected by conciliar ordinances relative to the Peace 
of God, by ecclesiastical immunities, by special privileges, and by 
the military power of the lord upon whose lands it was established. 
Thither came peasants and artisans desirous of escaping servile 
burdens, runaway serfs, and many of those nomads who were so 
numerous in the middle ages, and who were thus brought to 



TOWNS OF BURGESSY; NEW TOWNS 63 

settle down. Ordinarily two lords, most often a church and a 
great layman, joined in a reciprocal agreement for the creation of 
settlements of this kind. One of them furnished the site, the 
church extended to it the privileges of immunity which its pos- 
sessions enjoyed and conferred upon it the right of sanctuary, and 
the lord added the protection of his power. Then the two co-lords 
ruled together, sharing the expenses and the profits. These new 
centers were long called in France by the very significant name of 
" refuges."^ Some were established upon lands until then un- 
cultivated and uninhabited, others on the contrary were founded 
beside already existing centers, often near a monastery, a castle, 
or even an older town. Most were never anything but villages 
or small market-towns, but others became important places, such 
as Lavaur, Montauban, Bayonne, and la Rochelle — these, to name 
but a few, owed, some their origin, others their growth, to crea- 
tions of this kind. 

They multiplied especially when in the twelfth century lay 
authority had become more powerful and possessed wider means 
of action. Often nobles or churches made a reciprocal agree- 
ment with the sovereign, whose representative thus came to ex- 
ercise co-seigniorial rights over the lands of lay or ecclesiastical 
vassals. It is easily imagined to what extent the kings would 
favor these settlements, the most of which were for them real 
acquisitions. Thus the movement spread rapidly throughout 
France. In the north these new centers were designated as this 
or that Villeneuve. Most of the numerous localities of this name 
had this artificial origin. Louis VII founded Villeneuve-le-Roi in 
Senonais, Villeneuve near Compiegne, Villeneuve d'Etampes, and 
soon. In 1 175, the Count of Champagne created Villeneuve des 
Ponts-sur-Seine. In the south these new places were called 
hastides, a name sufficient in itself to indicate fortified places. 
Military aid, in fact, was often added to the other advantages 
which these settlements offered. The kings of England in their 
continental possessions, and the kings of France in their southern 
provinces, after the treaty of Paris of 1229, constructed numerous 
bastides. Most of them are recognizable to-day by their character- 

\} Salvitates!] 



64 EMANCIPATION OF THE TOWNS 

istic name, but especially by their regular plan, at least the traces 
of which they have generally preserved. It was always a rect- 
angle, as regular as the nature of the place permitted, and sur- 
rounded by walls which were pierced by fortified gates and 
dominated by towers. Near the center there was a great square, 
the market, surrounded by arcades which were formed by over- 
hanging stories supported upon arches and piers. In the middle 
of this arose the market-hall, whose upper story served as a town 
hall. Another square, the cemetery, surrounded the church, 
which was often fortified so as to serve as a place of retreat. In 
these squares terminated wide, straight streets, which were cut 
at right angles by other streets ; so that the plan of these bastides 
resembled a checker-board. 

These towns, in the north as in the south, were granted at their 
foundation charters of customs, privileges, and liberties, very 
analogous to those just analyzed. Beaumont, a summary of whose 
most important prerogatives was given, was a new town, a place 
of sanctuary, where exiles, strangers, and condemned persons 
could seek refuge — ^provided they had not committed theft or 
murder. Limitations of imposts and of corvees, tariffs of fines, 
rules of civil and penal law, such were often the favors promised 
to the inhabitants. This was, in short, under a modest form, the 
regime of Lorris ; and so from these new collectivities which arose 
in great number, .were formed veritable towns of burgessy. 

Although these communities were less clamorous, less ambi- 
tious, and made less show than the sovereign cities, they played no 
less a role in the history of the urban classes in the middle ages. 
In the first place, they were very numerous ; they could be counted 
by hundreds. This was the most frequent form of private emanci- 
pation. Moreover, if they did not have a class of citizens who ex- 
ercised public powers with complete independence, as compensa- 
tion to the lower classes in them were never oppressed by a domin- 
ant coterie. All of the inhabitants participated in the same rights 
and liberties, which meant less prerogatives for the few and more 
guaranties for the masses. Lastly, if it be remembered that at least 
in France the autonomy of the most powerful communes was 
already menaced and doomed by the encroaching power of the 
king, and that it could not be long before they were absorbed, it 



TOWNS OF BURGESSY ; NEW TOWNS 65 

will be understood why many historians have considered the 
condition of the towns of burgessy preferable to that of the free 
towns. If it was not so flattering to public vanity, it was less 
troubled and less precarious. Less proud, it owed to its very 
humility preservation from serious falls. 

5 



CONCLUSION 

On the whole, nothing could be more variable, or diverse, than 
the condition of the towns in the middle of the thirteenth century. 
Diverse in their origin, some dated back to antiquity; others, 
born of the wretchedness of the times, during the ninth and tenth 
centuries, were slowly formed by continuous agglomeration about 
a monastery or a castle ; a goodly number were of recent and 
artificial formation and owed their existence to the intelligent 
initiative of a few barons. Diverse in their history, some sus- 
tained struggles that were prolonged and hard, and sometimes 
savage; many bought more privileges than they gained by con- 
quest; certain ones neither had to fight nor spend money, and 
saw themselves granted privileges which they did not ask for. 
Diverse in their prerogatives, some became independent republics, 
others consular municipalities or sworn communes, free like the 
lords, and involved like them in the feudal hierarchy ; some, finally, 
possessed liberties so strictly limited to the civil and the adminis- 
trative order that historians have made of them a separate class, 
under the name of towns of burgessy. These innumerable differ- 
ences should not surprise us ; it is the law of life and of progress. 
Societies, like species, become diversified as they develop. 

Development, in fact, is the common characteristic of the history 
of urban populations of the middle ages ; the variety of their de- 
velopment is infinite. Let us note the profound transformation 
they underwent. In place of small bourgs, continually narrowing 
their boundaries in order to have less to defend, and becoming 
depopulated through wars, pillage, and famines that commerce 
no longer mitigated, were substituted more numerous and larger 

66 



CONCLUSION 67 

towns, which outgrew their walls and had powerful suburbs, and 
in which, thanks to the impulse of industry and trade, inhabitants 
abounded. In place of miserable and servile populations suc- 
ceeded new generations, which attained competence, sometimes 
wealth, and through competence liberty : personal and civil liberty 
always and everywhere ; often also collective and political liberty, 
although in infinitely varied degrees and very unequally distribu- 
ted. The towns from the seventh to the tenth century seemed 
mute ; a sepulchral atmosphere pervaded them. In the thirteenth 
century the cities hummed like hives. The streets were still nar- 
row, irregular, and unsanitary, but they were teeming with life. 
Encumbering them were bales, baskets, venders crying their wares, 
and enormous signs swinging in the wind, which sometimes im- 
periled the safety of passers-by. It was a new civilization bursting 
into bloom. Splendid monuments arose, attesting the public pros- 
perity and the genius of modest, unknown builders : romanesque 
and gothic churches lifted towards heaven their domes, cam- 
paniles, or spires ; glorious belfries, which dominated and threat- 
ened their surroundings, awaiting the approaching time when the 
inimitable town halls, with their brilliant ornamentations of stone, 
should cause them to be forgotten. The town bell was the public 
voice of the city, as the church bell was the voice of souls. The 
city in the thirteenth century lived, spoke, and acted. It was a 
new factor in society. A heretofore ignored order, which grand 
and distant destinies awaited, was slowly growing. This order, 
was the Third Estate. 



INDEX 



Advocate, 6. 

Arson, right, 40. 

Sanalities, 32. 

Bastides, 63. 

Bourg, 2. 

Brotherhoods, 7, 56 ; religious, 20. 

Burgesses, 42. 

Burgessy, towns of, 31, 60, 61. 

Capitouls, 45. 

Capitularii, 45. 

Castra, i. 

Charities, 7. 

Charters, 12, 14. 

Chevauchde, 32, 36, 61. 

Church, conflicts with, 54. 

Citizens, 42. 

Clergy, relations with, 17. 

Commerce, revival, 9. 

Communal Charter, 32 ; seal, 53 ; 
magistrates, 49, 52. 

Communes, sworn, 19, 21 ; insur- 
rections in, 21 ; collective, 29 ; 
rural, 29 ; relation to suzerain, 
35 ; military service, 36 ; seign- 
iorial rights, 38 ; alliances, 40 ; 
internal constitution, 42 ; gen- 
eral assembly, 44 ; public peace, 
54 ; seized by king, 58. 

Coinage, 52. 

Consuls, 8, 45. 

Conjuration, 20, 21. 

Corruption, communal, 57. 

Corvdes, 32, 60. 

Customs, acknowledgment of , 13. 

Defensors, 46. 

Echevins, 6, 47, 48. 

Emancipation, 25-27. 

Establishments of Rouen, 28, 39, 

50. 
Four Trades, 29. 
Franc of Bruges, 29, 
Frith-gilds, 7. 
Gard'-orphlnes, 52. 
Halle Basse, 7. 

Holy Roman Empire, towns, 28, 
Host, 36, 61. 

Institution of Peace, 23, 30, 59. 
Insurrections, 15. 
Internal discord, 56. 



Jtirade, 45. 

Jurats, 45, 47. 

Jur^s, 47, 48, 50. 

Justice, 49. 

Kings, relation with, 18. 

Libertas romana, 8. 

Lineages, 49. 

L,ivres, of Paris, 27 ; of Tours, 27. 

Ivords, relations with, 18. 

Manants, 43. 

Merchants, 34 ; leagues of, 20. 

Minor arts, 58. 

Mistress of interpretation, 35. 

Municipal magistrates, 45, 46. 

Mttnicipiuni, 8. 

Octroi, 52. 

Paisetirs, 52. 

Parages, 49. 

Peace of God, 62. 

Podesta, 47. 

Public peace, 54. 

Refuges, 63. 

Rewards, 47. 

Scabini, 6. 

Seigniories, 2 ; episcopal, 2 ; col- 
lective communal, 35. 

Syndics, 45. 

Taille, 32, 36. 

Town hall, 10. 

Towns, formation, 3 ; early condi- 
tion, 4 ; early organization, 6 ; 
causes of emancipation, 9 ; of 
Provence and Languedoc, 12 ; 
divisions, 14 ; emancipation, 16 ; 
and clergy, 17 ; and kings, 18 ; 
and lords, 18 ; of the Empire, 28 ; 
judicial divisions, 51 ; of bur- 
gessy, 31, 60 ; new, 62. 

Townsmen, 5. 

Urban institutions, 8. 

Vavasors, 11, 43. 

Vidame, 51. 
Vierg, 48. 
Villa, 4. 
Villeneuve, 63. 
Voire-jtcrks, 47. 

War and peace, 40, 

Watch-tower, 53. 



69 



Medieval Europe 

395-1270. 

By CHARLES BEMONT and G. MONOD. 

Translated by MARY SLOAN, with notes and revisions by PROF. 
GEORGE BURTON ADAMS, of Yale. 

556 pp., I2mo, $1.60 net. 



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